


Maybe There's Still Hope

by anxious_alien



Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Originals (TV)
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-10 02:24:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 47,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17417243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxious_alien/pseuds/anxious_alien
Summary: My name is Hope. That's what my mother had decided to call me, before she gave me up. She said in a letter that my "extremely unlikely" existence might be something amazing someday. Guess I wasn't amazing enough for her to keep me. In fact, I'm basically a monster, so if she had any way of knowing that, then of course she got rid of me.--AU where instead of going to New Orleans, instead of anyone ever finding out Hayley is pregnant, she gives Hope up for adoption, and she lands in a human family who quickly learns that she is not a normal little girl. At all. This is Hope's story, where she will find out just what exactly she is, and maybe who she is. With some help from a certain school and a certain very determined blonde vampire.





	1. Chapter 1

My name is Hope Baker, I’m fourteen years old, and I’m weird. I guess I’ve always been weird, ever since I was a kid.

No, before that. Definitely before that. Literally ever since I was born I’ve been a freak of nature. In fact, it had to have been obvious the minute my birth mother got pregnant with me. She’d contacted an adoption agency right away and had it set up for months before I came into the world.

I don’t know who she was. I only have a letter from her, and her only request: that I be named Hope. Because according to the letter: _it is my hope that your extremely unlikely existence will mean something amazing someday. I’m sorry it has to be this way. You’re probably better off raised by people a little more functional that your mom and dad._

Maybe she had been right…for a while.

Like I said, I was weird from day one. I never got sick as a baby. I never really got hurt either. One time I broke my wrist when I was five and as my adoptive parents were rushing me to the hospital…it healed. All on it’s own. Bruises disappeared within seconds, cuts disappeared within minutes. At first, they celebrated this fact. Who doesn’t want a healthy kid?

But then there were other things. Things that they just chalked up to coincidence at first. One time when I was nine months old, our car died right as a light turned green, and if it hadn’t, the truck running it’s red light would have surely killed us all. Another time, I was two years old and screaming in a supermarket, and the lights above shattered, and the power went out in the whole store. I still remember the first time my parents really began to suspect there might be something more going on.

_I was five years old, and it was my first day of kindergarten in August 2017. The first day of kindergarten is a pretty big deal for a kid. This is where we start to learn about the world, we learn to be away from our moms and dads, we make lifelong friends if we’re lucky, and learning is exciting and fun. My parents did what all parents do. They took my picture with my backpack that was way too big for me, I got dressed that morning in my favorite shirt. I loved this one made-for-TV Disney movie, Descendants, like…a lot. So my shirt had Mal and Evie’s faces on it and said “rotten to the core” and I even dressed up as Evie for Halloween and—okay, I’m getting off track. It just weirdly resonated with five year old me, okay? I felt a connection when I was little, which sounds stupid I know._

_Anyway, there I was, starting my education, getting ready to learn all there was to learn about the world, be my own person, and all that. But I was honestly a pretty shy kid. I cried when my parents left, and I know a lot of kids do, but some dumb boy had already laughed at me so my self-esteem was kind of shot for the day. I slouched down at my desk, hoping to be invisible to the teacher, and all the other kids. When we went around and introduced ourselves and said what we like to do, I barely stuttered “I’m…H-Hope. I…uh…I…I like t-to d-draw.” And that same boy laughed and said, “Aren’t you supposed to know how to talk before you go to school?”_

_I glared at him, but I wasn’t too mad. Not yet. I reminded myself there were other kids in my class, and I bet at least one of those kids would like me and we would be friends. I just had to be patient._

_Recess came, and I stood nervously at the edge of the playground. This was harder than I thought it would be. I tried, but I couldn’t quite work up the courage. I sat on the swing by myself the whole time instead. Now, at that age, I thought it was normal that I could make the swing move without even pumping my legs back and forth. I thought everyone swung this way. I didn’t know any other kids, and I guess no one had really shown me how to swing. So I sat there, making the swing move simply by willing it to until that same boy that had laughed at me ran up and stared._

_“How are you doing that? Show me how.” He demanded. I didn’t understand what he was asking._

_“What? I’m just swinging.”  I said nervously. I willed the swing to stop. He got on the one next to me._

_“Tell me how you made it do that without using your legs.”_

_That’s when I realized maybe something was different. But I still didn’t think it was a big deal. “I just…thought about it. I thought about it and it happened.”_

_“That’s stupid. Stop lying.”_

_Lying? I was indignant. I was not a liar. He had no right._

_“I’m not lying!” I said angrily._

_“Yes you are!”_

_Wind started to pick up around us. “Take that back.” I demanded._

_“No. Liar, liar, liar!” he sang in a particularly mean voice. Fine. I’d show him how to swing. Before I realized what I was doing, the swing went back and then shot forward, tossing him out into the grass. He broke his elbow. Unlike me, he had to wear a cast for several weeks. Everyone thought I pushed him out, even my parents. They questioned me about it over and over again, and told me to “stop lying.”  There was that word again. Liar. I screamed so loud at them, it shattered every window in the house._

_That’s when they knew I was…different._

I had one heck of a temper. I still do. Sometimes I get so mad, I just want someone to pay. Sometimes I even want to kill someone when they’ve been particularly awful. My parents pulled me out of school after that night. They said it wasn’t safe for other kids. It wasn’t my parents’ fault, they were human, they didn’t know anything about magic. I had a private tutor after that. My mom tried to help me with the anger issues, she really did, but I think she was scared of me too. I could feel it.

And then there was the day everything got much, much worse.

_There was a girl, Payton, who lived next door, she was just a couple of years older than me. So when her friends came around she was too cool for me, but then when it was just us she was happy to have me come over to play. I was only 9, and desperate for friends, so took what I could get. It was the summer of 2020 and I’d been working so hard on getting my power under control. If I just closed my eyes and counted, I could curb the anger, thus curbing the magical outbursts. Sometimes I could even use my magic for good things. I stopped a fire from spreading in the kitchen one time when mom left a rag on the burner. I healed a butterfly with a broken wing in the backyard._

_We were playing in her yard one day, and I forget what we were doing exactly, because all the bad stuff that followed overshadowed anything good about that day. But we were playing happily, and then Payton’s older brother Troy came outside. Troy was about 13 and he was a jerk. He was always picking on Payton and me, and he’d heard about my violent outburst in kindergarten and always brought it up. He called me “the little psycho.”_

_Today was no different. He came out and made his snide comments once again. We tried to ignore it, but he really kept at it that day. He just. Wouldn’t. Stop._

_“Hey. Hey psycho. Do you think they’ll put you in a straight jacket one of these days?” he kept saying, or some other unoriginal variation._

_“Stop it.” I tried to say calmly, even though my fists were already clenched and I was already seeing red. He kept going. And I kept repeating. “Stop it. Stop it. Stop. STOP. STOP IT, RIGHT NOW.” I screamed, as loud as I could. A gust of wind sent him flying back, slamming into side of his house. It sent Payton back too._

_Troy lived. Payton didn’t. A pair of gardening sheers that had been left out had also been picked up by the wind, and they were embedded in her throat._

_Authorities would say it was a freak accident. Everyone one would, even my parents. But my parents knew the truth. They knew exactly what had caused her death. I screamed and cried for days on end. My room was a disaster from the outbursts of magic. I’d killed my friend._

_And then a week later, the full moon came. And I screamed and screamed as every bone in my body broke. My parents were horrified. I think they finally gave up when they realized their little girl was full-fledged monster._

I don’t like to think about the two weeks that followed that night. My parents avoided me like the plague. They couldn’t even be in the same room with me. I laid awake at night, listening to them whisper uncertainly about me, about what to do. It was one such night that I heard my mother whisper a name.

“I did some research online and, I came across a forum where this woman said she has a school for…for people like Hope. She said to contact her directly for more information. She’s quite secretive, but I reached out to her and she’s coming to meet us next week. Her name is Caroline Forbes.”

The day I met her was probably the first genuinely good day I’d had since I was five.

_Caroline Forbes, and some mystery school, were supposedly the answer to all their problems. I was not convinced. I’d tried school before. It was obviously not for me._

_But the day Miss Forbes came to the house, she smile brightly at my parents. She appeared no older than 17 or 18 but she walked with such confidence and poise that she seemed older. I was still skeptical. This woman ran a school?_

_She talked to my parents for a few minutes and then finally asked to speak privately with me. My parents reluctantly agreed and reminded Miss Forbes that I was “volatile.” She assured them she felt quite safe._

_“Hello, Hope.” She said in a friendly voice. She sat across from me at the table in our tiny kitchen. I focused on my hands in my lap._

_“Hi…” I said nervously. My eyes darted up to her face. She seemed friendly enough. But then again, so did most people until they realized I was a freak of nature._

_“So I hear you’ve had some difficulties with regular school. Hope, do you know what a witch is?”_

_“They do magic…like me.” I had always pictured witches to be little old ladies with brooms and cauldrons though. Or like, Hogwarts students. For a brief moment I entertained the idea that I was going to Hogwarts. But no, that was silly. I was only nine, not eleven, and this woman was clearly American. And also not an owl._

_“They do! You see, I run a school. Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted. Yeah, it’s a mouthful. But we can teach you how to control your power, and even how to do spells and all kinds of things.”_

_I perked up at this news. If there was a whole school…there were other people like me. “What about…the other thing?” I asked._

_She nodded understandingly, “We can help with that too. There are other kids who have the same gene.” At my reaction, she explained, “I know you don’t know who your birth parents were. But one of them had to have been from a line of witches, and one of them had to have been from a werewolf line. And voila, now we have you.”_

_She smiled, like having me in the world was some genuinely great thing. I had a hard time agreeing._

_“So…you want to take me to this school, right?”_

_“Only if you want to go. I think you’d enjoy it.” She said warmly, “And the new semester is starting soon, so we can leave tonight and get you settled in before everyone else gets back from summer break. I have two girls, Josie and Lizzie, who are close to your age. They do magic too.”_

_I didn’t believe that at all. “You have kids?”_

_She grinned, “Let’s just say I age well. I’ll explain everything to you, I promise. Hope, is this something you would like?”_

_I thought about the destruction that had happened in the past few weeks, and my parents’ wary looks, and my dead friend, and complete lack of a social life in general. I didn’t exactly have much to lose._

_“I think I do.” I told her._


	2. Chapter 2

So, it’s easier if I just start from the beginning and I’ll catch up to the present eventually. It’s just…a really long story, you know?

Caroline Forbes was the most cheerful person I had ever met in my whole life.  She was also a vampire, which became known when she stopped halfway through our journey to get a blood bag from the cooler in the trunk. “Sorry, I don’t bring it up with the humans, because then they’re a little less keen on sending their kids to the school. And that’s really not good for anyone, you know? Don’t worry, you’re totally safe.” I believed her. She seemed safe. And learning of the existence of vampires was probably the least-weird thing to have happened to me. She was chatty too, and it was an eight hour drive to Mystic Falls. She never ran out of things to say.

“I think you’re really going to be happy there. And you’re actually the first hybrid our school will have! So that’s exciting.”

“Hybrid?”

“You’re part witch, part werewolf. Doesn’t happen often. Witches, werewolves, and vampires…tend to avoid each other. Our school aims to change that.” She finished proudly.

“Are there other hybrids?” I asked.

She hesitated, “There…there’s at least one who’s vampire-witch, also very rare. And there’s…um, one vampire-werewolf hybrid, and there won’t be any more of those. I’m sure there are others with your combination though. We just don’t come across them much. And your werewolf side has to be activated…by taking a human life.”

I stared down at my lap, ashamed. “I hadn’t meant to.”

“I know,” she said quickly, “I didn’t mean it like that. The werewolf curse doesn’t care. Accidental death counts too.”

Well, that’s just great. I was nine and I’d already killed someone and cursed myself in the process.

“So is the werewolf thing the reason why I heal so fast?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah, once the curse is triggered, you get, kind of enhanced abilities. You can run faster, jump higher, heal quicker. All that stuff.”

That’s not what I meant though. Before the curse was triggered I could already do that stuff pretty well. I could out-run anyone, and I once accidentally jumped clear on top of our storage shed outside when I saw a snake once. And healing faster had always been a thing.

“No, I mean-”

“Oh! We’re almost there. You see that building? That’s your new school. We’ve still got a week before kids start moving in, so it’s a little empty right now. But that should give you time to adjust.”

I peered out the window at the massive, and very old, building. “Wow.” I whispered.

We unpacked my bags from her car and made our way up to the entrance, while I tried to take in everything. Honestly, it looked very much like a regular boarding school, and not as Hogwarts-y as I was expecting. I expected it to be all dark and gloomy or something, but inside was lot brighter and just…school-like.

Caroline lead me up the stairs to an office and threw the door open without knocking. A very tired-looking man sat at the desk.

“Hope, this is Alaric Saltzman. He’s the headmaster here. We’ll work on your class schedule and go over the ground rules.”

Oh no. Rules. I’ve never been great at rules.

“Don’t panic. Here, I’ll just go over the ones that apply to you. No using magic against your peers, no use of magic outside of classroom. On the full moon, we have a facility downstairs where you can transform safely and securely, away from the other students. It’s no fun, and I’m sorry, but it’s for everyone’s safety. You’ll drink wolfsbane beforehand, and truth be told, I’ve heard it’s terrible. But it’s an extra precaution we have to take.

“Vampires are not allowed to feed on fellow students, so if anyone asks.” She held up a hand, “No means no. And if anyone gives you any trouble, at all, you come find me or Mr. Saltzman and tell us. We want to be here for you, Hope. But you have to trust us.”

“I…I can’t always control my magic though.” I said nervously. I’d get expelled within a week.

“We understand there’s a bit of a learning curve.” Alaric assured me, “Just let us know when you’re having trouble. And we can help you work through what causes you to lose control.”

This all seemed way too good to be true.

“There has to be a catch.” I said skeptically. 

Caroline thought about it, “Well, curfew is at 9pm for you all week until you’re older, and then it’s 11pm on the weekends. And until you’re older you can’t go into town without an adult chaperone.”

“I can manage that.”

“Great! Mr. Saltzman is going to get started on figuring out your schedule, and I’m going to show you to your new room. It’ll be right next door to my daughters’ room actually. I might bring them by tomorrow so you can all get acquainted.”

Caroline showed me to my new room. It was great too. There were two beds, so I assumed this meant I was getting a roommate. This was a frightening prospect. I turned to her.

“Miss Forbes…I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone.” I said.

“I think you’ll find it a little easier to manage here. People understand you here, Hope.” She promised.

“I killed my friend.” I whispered, sitting down on one of the beds. “My only friend.”

Caroline sat down next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Everyone’s done things they regret. You couldn’t help it. You weren’t trying to kill anyone.”

Was that true though? I had been pretty intent on hurting Troy. Badly.

“My parents kept talking about it. They kept talking about how upset her parents were. And how scared _he_ was of me.” My stare hardened, as anger slowly stared to boil beneath the surface, “I feel bad, I do, but then sometimes I’m _glad_ he’s scared of me. He should have been scared way sooner. Then maybe she’d be alive.”

The lamp on the dresser flickered. I took slow breaths.

Of all the reactions she could have had, Caroline _laughed._ “Oh my gosh. You totally just reminded me of someone. A really, _really_ , old friend. Like you were channeling him, I swear.” She composed herself, “It’s okay to feel that way though. Your feelings are always valid. We just need to work on healthy ways to express that anger. What do you like to do?”

“I like art. I love to draw, and paint. I brought all my art supplies.” I think I had packed more of that than actual clothes.

“Awesome! There’s your outlet. And we offer art as an elective here, I’ll make sure it’s on your schedule.” She smiled brightly again. I couldn’t resist smiling back.

She left me to unpack after that. I went to the desk and carefully laid out my colored pencils, paints, markers, charcoal pencils, paper, and every other precious thing I’d brought. I stuffed the clothes in the dresser drawers to the best of my ability. I hoped my soon-to-be roommate wouldn’t have a bed preference. But I guess I wouldn’t mind switching, since I really didn’t want to screw up my chances here.

Caroline made good on her promise to bring Lizzie and Josie the next day. They were twins, and we were a couple of year apart, but I was fascinated to learn of other people who could do magic. They were siphons, which meant they didn’t have their own magic, other than the power to draw it out of other people or objects. Magic ran throughout every surface of the school, so they had plenty to draw from.

Josie and I got along instantly. Lizzie was a little more standoffish, but she wasn’t outright mean. In the end, Josie came back to visit nearly every day that she could get her mother to bring her. Lizzie came when there was literally nothing else to do, and she made sure we knew that.

Finally, move in day arrived. I paced my room anxiously, wondering who I would get as a roommate and wondering if she would like me and if anyone had told her beforehand that her new roommate was an anomaly even in the supernatural world.

That was the day I met Penelope Park. From the moment she walked in, it was like she was the embodiment of confidence. Penelope becoming my roommate would turn out to be a godsend, even though at times she would also turn out to be the worst influence in history.

This was Penelope’s first year at Salvatore Boarding School too, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She seemed totally at home. I kind of awkwardly stood by as she said goodbye to her parents, who made a way bigger deal about her being away at boarding school than mine did. Mine were in a rush just to get rid of me.

As soon as they left, she turned to me and cocked her head. “So you’re the wolf girl who also does magic, right?”

Surprised, I asked, “How did you know that?”

“That blonde girl, the one who’s the headmaster’s daughter? She’s been telling everyone who will listen.” Penelope said with a shrug.

“Oh.”

“She  _also_ said you blew up an orphanage with your mind. And that that’s how you triggered your werewolf curse.”

“ _What?_ ” Okay, wow, maybe I had misjudged Lizzie. Or maybe she just liked to make things up. Either way, I'd try to proceed with caution from now on.

Penelope did not seem to see the big deal about this, at all. “So what? Let people think what they want.”

“Why would I want to do that?” I didn't need everyone at my school hating me before they even met me.

“Because people who are dumb enough to believe what some random girl says about you aren’t people we wanna be friends with anyway.”

“Well...I guess that makes sense.” She said "we" as if she'd already decided we were friends now.

She smiled, satisfied with my response. “Good. Okay, it looks like we have this stupid tour of the school to get to. Come on.”

We went down to the main lobby where a teenage boy with headphones on his hears was lounging in one of the chairs. He took them off when he spotted us.

“Penelope and Hope?” he asked. We nodded yes. “Okay, cool. I’m Milton Greasley, but please don’t ever call me that. MG is fine. Let’s start with the library.”

“Who is Stefan Salvatore?” Penelope asked as we walked into the room. The library had apparently been dedicated to him.

“Hey, I’m giving you the tour, not the history lesson. You’ll learn all that, there’s a whole class on Mystic Falls and its supernatural bad luck.”

“How long have you been going to school here?” I asked him.

“A couple of years.”

“How long are you going to keep going to school here?” Penelope asked. “I mean, you’re a vampire, right?”

“It’s different for vampires. Miss Forbes says we can stay as long as we feel we need to, and as long as we want to keep learning. I like to learn, and I don’t hear from the family anymore.” He shrugged, “They’ll probably have to kick me out of here.”

I wanted to ask what he meant about his family, but this didn’t seem like the best time. He kept showing us the rest of the school, including ideal hiding spots, but “not my favorite ones, because those are mine.” He'd said with a wink. We liked MG.

At the end of the tour, he told us “I’m also like, supposed to be your mentor or whatever for your first year. So find me if you have any trouble. And don’t _start_ any trouble, or you’ll make me look bad.”

Classes didn’t start for another three days, and I spent every waking minute with Penelope and usually Josie. Lizzie would come along too, but I think we did more fighting than anything. She butted heads with Penelope constantly, and I think our tempers were just a little too similar. Still, we were practically inseparable.

School with other kids like me was incredible. The only downside was the other werewolves didn’t quite get along with me. I was always faster and stronger, even though I was the youngest werewolf there by at least three years, and they accused me of somehow using magic to cheat. They liked to have races and other competitions during their free time, and basically things reached a point where the other kids said I couldn’t participate because it wasn’t fair.

I ran crying to MG, who was lying across one of the tables in the library with his headphones on and a book held open above his head. Upon seeing me, and seeing several books fly off the shelves from my distress, he sat up.

“Whoa, hey. What’s wrong, Hope?” he said. It felt stupid to go to a vampire about a wolf issue, but considering all of the wolves hated me, I didn’t have a lot of options. Through tears, I told him what happened. I swore on everything that I hadn’t used magic at all. I just liked to run really fast and jump really high, and see just how far I could go. It made me feel invincible.

“Well, who cares about what they think? You don’t need them.”

“Wolves have packs. I’m supposed to have a pack.” I said shakily. That’s one of the things we’d learned about in class, although I had no idea what pack I was from. Part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. Caroline and Alaric had offered to help me search, but I wanted my adoptive parents to accept me. If I could get the magic under control, and get my transformations under control, they would still love me and I wouldn’t have any reason to find my birth parents. I just had to work really hard.

“You’re still a witch too though. And you’ve got plenty of friends on that side. And you’ve got me, and provided you don’t bite me on a full moon, I’ll be in your pack.”

I laughed, wiping my eyes, “You’re not a werewolf.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s a stupid qualifier for having your own pack.” He looked around at the mess I’d caused, “Ugh, okay, let’s pick these up. Lucky for you, I could organize this library in my sleep. Promise me you won’t melt anyone’s brains now?”

I sighed, as if the effort to avoid doing so might actually kill me. “I’ll do my best.” I grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this will be the first chapter involving a scene where Hope is not directly part of it. I've decided to write any scenes like that from 3rd person. If it's confusing though, let me know and I'll change it!
> 
> And thanks for the support!

Milton Greasley continued to take his job as a peer mentor extremely seriously. I think he took it more seriously than it was ever meant to be taken. The role had been created for things like homework help, or finding the bathroom when you’re lost in the first week. Not for things like preventing a nine year old angry werewolf from exacting revenge against some very awful older werewolf kids.

I threw my hands up and the canvas caught fire. It was destroyed anyway. I’d come into art class that day to find someone had painted “FREAK” in bright red letters across my landscape I’d been working on. It was one of the other wolves. It had to have been. I’d been here for a few months now and they were dead-set on sending me packing.

Miss Forbes came running into the room, followed by Penelope, who’d run to get her just a few minutes before.

“What’s going on?” she exclaimed. Penelope shouted the spell to extinguish the flames. I was tempted to light it up again.

“What’s going on is that I should be getting paid for this, Miss Forbes.” MG said in exasperation, “Better the painting ends up in flames than any students though, you’re welcome.”

“Hope, sweetie…for starters, you can’t start fires in the art room.” Caroline told me, “Now tell me what happened.”

I avoided her gaze. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” I’d seen enough movies to know what happens when you go running to an adult if someone messes with you. It will only get worse.

“Hope, I can’t put a stop to this if you don’t tell me.”

“You don’t need to. I’m fine.” I looked at the burnt canvas, “I…just…couldn’t get the shading right. So I torched it, by accident. It won’t happen again.”

She shook her head in defeat, “Okay. Fine. Let me know when you do want to talk though. Get this cleaned up, okay?” She paused for a moment, as if waiting for me to change my mind. I kept staring at the canvas until she left.

“We’ll get back at them, Hope.” Penelope said.

“Nope. No, no, no. You’re not getting back at anyone.” MG said firmly. “They’re just stupid kids, Hope. Save the wrath for another day. There’s like three months left in the school year, and you said you wanted to show your parents how well you’ve been controlling your anger. We’re in the home stretch, okay?”

He was right. I knew he was right. Penelope’s opinion was super tempting though. Together, who knew what kind of hell we could raise.

I know I resort to violent thoughts probably a little too much. Alaric says it’s the werewolf curse. When the full moon gets closer, I’m more prone to outbursts, and having magic doesn’t make it any easier.

“Now, I’ve got homework to catch up on. Please don’t rip anyone to shreds while I’m gone.” MG told me before he left. Penelope sat down beside me, and looked at the destroyed canvas.

“We’d just have to make sure not to get caught.” Penelope suggested.

“Ugh. He’s right. I need to be on my best behavior. I want them to be proud of me.”

Other than the troubles with the other werewolves, things had been going alright. I was learning spells, and in doing so, I was learning to control the magic. My angry outbursts weren’t anything like they were before.

Instead of plotting epic revenge, we went to find the Saltzman twins and spent the rest of the day in their room. Even arguing with Lizzie was preferable to thinking about the werewolf problem.

My birthday came and went in April, and we had a small party to celebrate, courtesy of Caroline Forbes herself. She didn’t do anything too extravagant, because “special treatment” rules and everything, but she seemed to have caught wind that my parents hadn’t even called. They’d sent a card with some money in it. It was fine, I told myself every day, they would see me this summer and they’d know I was much better now.

* * *

 

Niklaus Mikaelson had been given very specific instructions by the lovely Caroline Forbes. He would adopt a stupid American accent, and introduce himself only as “Nick” to anyone who might ask. He thought it was ridiculous, but Caroline insisted that it was a necessary precaution. Students learned who the Original Vampires were in class, and the last thing she needed was Klaus scaring some kid half to death. Whether on purpose or otherwise.

He was admittedly impressed with what she’d managed to accomplish over the years. The school was a huge success, with more students coming in every year.

Caroline herself, was in her office, busily going through paperwork and getting everything in order for the last week of school. Between final grades, and graduation, and just making sure kids’ parents arrived on time to pick their students up, anyone else might have enlisted help. Not Caroline.

Klaus slipped into office quite unnoticed while her back was turned and she was rummaging through a filing cabinet and muttering to herself. When she turned back around and found him standing there, she nearly dropped the stack of papers she was holding.

“Oh my _god_. Don’t do that.” She scolded the thousand year old vampire, like he was one of her students. He couldn’t help being amused.

“Sorry, love. But I thought you’d be happy to see me!” He reached into a back he’d been carrying and pulled out a pint of blood, and set it on the desk. And then he took out his wallet and laid a check for a very large sum of money on the desk as well. “One pint of my blood, for emergencies, and one monetary donation. You should consider yourself lucky. I don’t allow just anyone to keep stores of my blood on hand.”

“I really do appreciate it, _Nick_.” She smiled. “You know you don’t have to write a check every time you visit though.”

“I know but you usually say yes to dinner when I do.” He smirked. That was true.

Her cell phone rang and she checked the screen. “Oh, thank god. I’ve been trying to get in touch with these people for weeks!” she said before answering, “Mrs. Baker! Hi, how are you? I just wanted to let you know, pick up starts at `10am on the 16th. Hope is so excited. She’s worked so hard this year, you’re gonna be so proud of her progr—wait, what?”

She frowned, and Klaus could hear the woman on the other end apologizing. _“I just don’t think it’s the best idea right now. She’s better off there, you know?”_

“No, no, Mrs. Baker, that’s not…we’re not a full time school. She has to go home for summer break, she can’t just _stay here._ No, listen. No. She’s really looking forward to—hello? Mrs. Baker?”

Caroline slowly put the phone down on the desk. Her ability to remain calm in even the most challenging situations was admirable.

“Parents causing problems? Who do I need to maim?” Klaus asked in an attempt to lighten her mood. It didn’t work.

“She’s gonna be heartbroken.” Caroline said softly. “She’s been talking about this for weeks. How am I going to tell a ten year old girl her parents don’t want her to come back home?”

She blew out of a breath and then opened the bottom drawer of her desk, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and a couple of shot glasses. She poured one for herself, and one for Klaus, and downed hers before he could even reach for his glass. Then she poured another one for herself and downed that too.

“It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. I’ll just…I’ll take her home with my and the girls for the summer. We’ve got a spare room. Alright. Okay. I’m gonna go tell her.”

She briskly walked to the door and opened it, only to find Milton Greasley on the other side.

“I uh…I wasn’t eavesdropping.” He said quickly.

“Well, what brings you to my office then, Milton?”

He cringed at the use of his name. “Okay, fine, I was walking by and I heard you on the phone with Hope’s mom. But really, I wanted to say she could just stay here at the school.”

“No, that’s absurd.”

“No it isn’t! Me and some of the other vampires always stay here over the summer right? I was planning on it anyway. I haven’t heard from my dad in over a year. Hope can stay here, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“You’re still a kid, Milton. Immortality hasn’t really changed that.” Caroline said doubtfully. “And it’s the last week of school. Your duties as a peer mentor are kind of over with. This is a little bit above and beyond.”

“Okay, but there’s always staff here to check in on us. You’re here like four times a week usually. I know I’m not a werewolf or a witch, but I know what being abandoned by your family feels like. So do several of the others. Seeing as vampirism isn’t really a genetic thing. We’re used to not having family to help us through. The others really like Hope, anyway. She’d be safe.”

Caroline seemed to be considering it, while Klaus listened to the back-and-forth with interest. He couldn’t lie, he was suddenly invested in the plight of this ten year old girl.

“I’ll at least give her the choice.” She finally decided. She finally collected her thoughts and started out of the room, only to double back and grab Klaus’s arm. “Ugh. Just come with us. I’m not leaving you here to snoop through my office. And _then,_ I guess we can get dinner.”

* * *

 

“There’s no way I’m coming up there.” Penelope said with her arms firmly crossed. I was high up in a tree on the edge of the school property. It had been a cakewalk. I tried to convince Penelope that if she just tried, I’d be able to help, but she refused to believe me. “You heal fast. I’m a bit more breakable.”

“But if you could figure out a way up here, it would be the perfect hiding spot.” I lamented. But I pushed myself off the branch and leapt to the ground. Penelope had seen me do this dozens of times, but she still sucked in a breath through her teeth as she watched. I landed effortlessly on my feet.

“Are you sure you don’t use magic when you do that?”

I shrugged, “It’s just easy. No magic required.”

We sat down at the base of the tree and Penelope scrolled through youtube on her phone, trying to find something to watch to pass the time. We were both getting antsy with it being the last week of school. We were both excited to go home but I was starting to get a little depressed at the thought of leaving my new friends for the summer. I leaned my head against hers.

“I’m gonna text you like, a hundred times a day.” Penelope swore. “And Lizzie and Josie have their tablets, so we have to spam them on instagram or something.”

“Does their mom _know_ they’re on instagram?”

“Nope, and hopefully it will stay that way.”

We watched videos for a while and then Penelope scrolled through her instagram and we stalked some of the older guys at school we had crushes on. Or maybe a few girls, in Penelope’s case, but at that age she said she “just wanted to look like them.” A real conversation about that wouldn’t happen for a couple more years.

“Hope?” I looked up and saw Caroline, MG, and a man I didn’t recognize walked towards us. I already didn’t like Caroline’s somber expression. Penelope grasped my hand in hers. It was clear something was wrong.

“Hope…your mother just called. She, um, she said it won’t be possible for you to come home this summer.” Caroline paused, “They’re just…just really busy right now? They think it’ll be better for you to just stay here.”

I could hear the words coming out of her mouth but my brain wouldn’t process it. MG was saying something now, but it’s like he was underwater. Penelope squeezed my hand but I barely felt it.

“Hope? Hope!” Penelope’s voice snapped me back into focus. The leaves in the tree above us were rustling violently. I looked up, curiously, and then realized it was my fault. I took several deep breaths, trying to regain control. But…did it really matter now? Did anything matter now?

“We wanted to give you a choice.” Caroline said. She was kneeling down in front of me now.

“A choice.” I repeated numbly. It seemed like the only choice right now was whether this tree was going to burst into flames or not.

“I’d be happy to let you come home and spend the summer with me and the girls. But if you’d rather stay at the school, MG and the others that stay over the summer will be here. And there will be staff here at all times if you need anything.”

“And maybe you could come stay at my house for a while.” Penelope jumped in, “I’ll make my parents fly you out.”

“I’ll stay here.” I said immediately. It was nice of Caroline to open her home to me, but the thought of playing audience to her daughters and their happy separate-but-peacefully-co-parenting family made me feel a little bit ill. “Really, I’ll be okay. I’m fine, Miss Forbes.”

The wind had stopped blowing, I could breathe again, and I just really needed everyone to stop staring at me like I was a ticking time bomb.

“We’re gonna have a great summer, okay? It’ll be fun.” MG assured me. And he looked quickly at Caroline and added, “And everything will be 100% school-approved, of course.”

I told them I just wanted to be alone for a minute, and they all reluctantly agreed. As soon as I felt they were far enough away, the ground beneath me began to shake.

“Ugh, no, the last thing she needs is-” I heard Caroline say, but instantly, the man who’d accompanied Caroline returned.

“Well, that was a good show of self-control for a whole ten minutes.” He commented. The ground still shook but he didn’t seem bothered.

“What do you care?”

Caroline was in the distance, but I could see that she had turned to watch the conversation. I was sure she could hear from where she was too. He sat down next to me.

“I’m just a friend of your headmistress. Call me Nick. I donate to the school from time to time. I kind of don’t want it destroyed in an earthquake if that’s alright with you.” He said. I managed to stop the shaking, and he asked, “Why didn’t you want to go home with Miss Forbes?”

I looked down at my feet and drew my knees to my chest. “I don’t really want to be reminded of what I can’t have. And anyway, I’m _fine._ The Bakers aren’t my real parents.”

“So why not look for your real family?” he asked, “Seems like as good a time as any.”

“Family’s not that important.” I glared at my feet, “It wasn’t to them anyway.”

“I’d argue that it is very important.” He said with a smile, “But it’s more than just whom you share blood with. You can choose your family, you know.”

“I can?” I thought of MG, and Penelope. Even the twins.

“Of course.” He said. He stood up and dusted himself off, “But if you change your mind, I’ve met a _lot_ of wolf packs. Just have Miss Forbes contact me.”

He walked back to Caroline, who was smiling at him now with a look of relief on her face.

I was still angry. But his words resonated with me. I had my friends, and they’d proven far more loyal than my parents, adoptive or biological.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To answer some questions, I don't intend to have the Dahlia and Freya storyline in this, but that *might* change. I'm still pondering how exactly I would make it happen. 
> 
> And it's been pointed out that in canon, Hope would still be able to control her transformations even without the Crescent pack having evolved status, which I overlooked. But for the sake of this story, we'll assume she has to change on the full moon no matter what, and as for changing at will...we'll get to that quite soon.
> 
> Also, there's not much known about MG's backstory so I've taken a lot of liberties there!

I’d told MG that this was stupid. I told him I was thirteen years old now and much too old for silly games. That was maybe twenty minutes prior. Now, though, we were at war.

I had no idea why MG had plastic lightsabers readily available, but I also wasn’t entirely surprised that he did. Within no time, we were chasing each other through the hallways, up and down the stairs, leaping from balconies, and fighting to the death. He was Luke Skywalker. I was Darth Vader. I was totally going to win.

It helped that the full moon was just a few nights away and I was even more durable than usual.

It was the end of my fourth summer staying at Salvatore Boarding school while the rest of the kids went home to their families. I’d spent a week with Penelope, and I spent several weekends with Josie and Lizzie. But for the most part, I spent every day with MG and his vampire friends.  I grew to love summer here. I hardly ever experienced the rage that triggered my bursts of magic, I didn’t have homework to worry about, I didn’t have stupid werewolf power struggles to worry about.

Instead of all that, I was happy to chase down MG with a lightsaber. For a while, I had the upper hand, and successfully backed him into a corner. “Last chance, Skywalker! Join the dark side or die.” I wielded the plastic sword as threateningly as I could. I was far too caught up in our game now to feel silly or immature. MG grinned, already scheming.

“Never.” He leapt straight up, grabbed one of the rafters and swung himself over me, landing several feet away.

“Hey! We said no cheating!” I yelled. “That’s totally cheating!” He laughed and already took off down the hall and I angrily chased after him. I came to the main entrance, where he was nowhere to be found. I looked around suspiciously, including the ceiling, but I didn’t see him. Quietly as I could manage, I sprinted up the grand double staircase and stood at the top, not daring to make a sound. He came out from another hall and looked around.

“Do you finally give up, Darth Vader?” he called. I crouched down behind the banister. He furrowed his brow. “Hope? Where did you go-”

“Prepare to die!” I screamed, literally at the top of my lungs, and leapt over the railing, straight down on his back.

“Agh!” he yelled, laughing hysterically, “Now who’s cheating.”

I clung to his back and put the lightsaber to his throat. “Any last words before you meet your demise?”

“Darth Vader definitely did not use this tactic like, at any point ever.”

“That’ll make an excellent epitaph on your headstone.” I said in a smug voice.

Behind us, someone cleared their throat, causing MG to spin around to the front entrance. I recognized one of the men standing before us. It was Miss Forbes’ friend, Nick. I hadn’t seen him since I was 10, but he looked pretty much the same. The man standing next to him was unfamiliar though.

I dropped down from MG’s back.

“I don’t think there’s an explicit rule about lightsaber fights in the halls, but if you could just not mention this to Miss Forbes, that’d be awesome.” MG said.

* * *

 

Klaus and Elijah pulled up to the school in Elijah’s Bentley, and Elijah killed the engine.

“I don’t know _why_ you insisted on coming.” Klaus said.

“Curiosity.” Elijah simply said. “A school full of young supernaturals all living together in harmony? One must see it to believe it, I think.”

“Well, like I said, Caroline is adamant about keeping a low profile. So work on your accent, brother, and…well, we’ll call you Ethan.” Klaus decided.

Elijah frowned, “I feel I should at least get to pick.”

“Well, that’s just not fun for me.”

They got out of the car, and walked up to the entrance, already hearing a commotion in side. They looked at each other in mild confusion, because they knew most of the students would still be away on summer break and it was roughly 9:00am.

They opened the door just in time to see Hope Baker land on MG’s back and declare victory. After allowing them a couple of minutes to bicker, Elijah cleared his throat. The older boy turned, and the young auburn haired girl hopped down from his back.

“I don’t think there’s an explicit rule about lightsaber fights in the halls, but if you could just not mention this to Miss Forbes, that’d be awesome.” The boy said sheepishly.

“And where might Miss Forbes be?” Klaus asked.

“She should be here soon. I’ll take you to her office.” He looked down at Hope and handed her the plastic weapons, “Take these back to my room and _don’t touch anything_. Especially not the playstation. Again.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to run up the stairs and down the hallway on second floor. MG waited a second to see that she was gone, and started down the hall towards the administration section.

“Call me MG, by the way. And really, it’d be great if you don’t rat us out to the headmistress? She hates when we roughhouse in the hallways. It’s just that I’ve discovered that if I find ways to let Hope burn off some energy early in the day, she gets a whole lot less prone to warpath-of-destruction when something inevitably sets her off. It’s been a learning process. I'm basically the leading expert now, not to brag.” He said over his shoulder to the two men that followed. He hoped they wouldn’t ask why he had tasked himself with watching out for her. He wasn’t totally sure why he had either. Maybe he just kind of wished someone had done the same for him when he woke up from the dead as a vampire and his parents immediately sought out a place to send him away. “And can I call you Klaus and Elijah or do you have some other fake names I’m supposed to use?”

They stopped in their tracks, and Elijah sped around in front of him. “How exactly do you know our identities?” he said it in a more curious tone than anything.

MG shrugged, “Keeping up with Hope Baker during the summer doesn’t occupy _all_ of my time, thank god, but I still get bored. I know you go to great lengths to keep pictures of yourselves from popping up, even in the great modern age of technology, but you gotta know it still happens. It took some time, but I found your pictures. I was pretty surprised to realize I’ve already met you, Klaus. But Miss Forbes seems to think you’re okay, or there’s no way in hell you’d be standing in this building right now.”

Klaus and Elijah did not quite know what to say to that.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone. Any really, no one else here cares enough about delving into history any more than our textbooks require.” He rolled his eyes at that last part. Klaus and Elijah exchanged bemused glances.

He continued walking down the hall until he led them to an office with a row of chairs outside of it.

“You can wait here until she gets in. She should be here any time now.” Caroline was around quite a bit more in the past week or so since school would be starting soon. This was much to the dismay of MG and his friends, because they got away with a whole lot less with her around versus any other staff, even Alaric.

“I’m curious, MG.” Klaus began, “If I recall, the last time I saw young Miss Baker, she’d received some rather unfortunate news. How is she faring?” Elijah looked surprised that his brother might even remotely care. But Klaus had always had a soft spot for the black sheep of the world. Apart from that, his interest was not entirely selfless. Based on what he could get out of Caroline, she was not only a hybrid born from a witch and a werewolf, but her power was unmatched. He’d be a fool not to stay up-to-date on the girl.

MG was quiet for a moment, making sure he didn’t hear any small footsteps bounding in their direction. She’d probably taken it upon herself to mess with the playstation after all. If only because he’d told her not to. He decided the coast was clear.

“Why do you care?” he asked skeptically.

“Who doesn’t love an underdog?”

“She’s been doing a lot better. I mean…it kind of helps that the cards and letters from her adoptive parents stopped after a while, actually. It just made it easier to move on from them. It was really annoying when they cut her phone off and also changed their own number, but Mr. Saltzman bought her a new one and she just has to keep her grades up to keep it. But she found out last year that the reason they didn’t want her to come home is that they had a baby the first summer she was supposed to go back. They didn’t want her around the baby.” His eyes were downcast, and then he looked up extremely seriously, “But hey, I never told you that. Nothing will trigger her temper faster. I know you’re supposedly un-killable but I almost believe she’d find a way.”

“We will certainly keep that in mind.” Klaus assured him.

“I love her like a sister, but man,” he shook his head, “the kid is scary sometimes.”

* * *

 

MG’s roommate, a werewolf who thankfully knew what was good for him and kept his distance, was gone for the summer so I could hang out in here pretty much whenever I wanted. When I was younger, his room was fascinating even though most of it was totally off limits. Like, action figures from movies that were decades old, still in their packaging. He collected a lot of things. I couldn’t even touch his comic books unless he was right there in the room. I looked around for a moment, contemplating breaking his very clear instructions not to mess with anything. I saw the picture of Spider-man I’d drawn for him, framed on his wall. I smiled, remembering how proud I’d been when he made a big deal about needing a frame for it right away and finding the perfect place on the wall for it.

There was a knock at the door. “He’s not here.” I called out.

MG’s friend, Myra, opened the door. “Hey, Hope. Where did MG go?”

I liked Myra well enough. I knew she had a _thing_ for MG and from the way he got all nervous when she came around, I knew he felt the same. She’d come to school just a couple of years ago and she and MG had hit it off pretty much instantly. And recently, Josie and Penelope were inseparable as well, and it all just made me feel super nervous for the future.

Not that I didn’t want them to be happy or anything, but I had already been replaced before.

I smiled back at her, a little bit forced, “Miss Forbes has visitors. He’s just showing them to her office to wait.”

“Oh, okay. Um, is he spending…the whole day with you today?” she asked tentatively.

Come on, at least try to be subtle, Myra.

That familiar pit in my stomach formed, but I brushed it off. I did, admittedly, have plans that day. “Actually, no, I’m going home with Miss Forbes after her meeting today to spend the night.”

Her face visibly lit up. “Oh! I mean, I just needed to ask him about the summer reading, we had to study Silas, and ummm, you know, he’s just really good at that stuff.”

“I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.” I said. I said bye to her and went to pack a backpack for tonight, and then I went downstairs to find that Lizzie and Josie were already in the lobby waiting for me. I ran up and hugged them both.

“Mom’s just finishing up her meeting with that guy she totally likes.” Lizzie said with a snicker.

“Every time she hears from him _at all_ she gets ridiculous.” Josie agreed, “And then she gets all angry when we bring it up.”

“So of course we always do.”

I’d missed them. They’d been away with their dad for the past couple of weeks on vacation.

We were talking about who we looked forward to seeing and who we were _not_ looking forward to seeing, and that’s when Lizzie made the dire mistake of bringing up _Jed._

“I’d been hoping he’d drop off a cliff over the summer.” I said darkly, “Just so I wouldn’t be forced to be the one to throw him off one myself.”

 “He’s just scared you’ll decide you want to try for alpha in a few years.” Josie tried to calm me down, “It’s the only reason he picks on you. He knows you’d kick his stupid butt.”

“I don’t even want any part of that. He can have the title if he wants.” I paused and added, “As long as he actually earns it.”

“No one’s kicking anyone’s butt.” Caroline announced, “And I’ve told the wolves a thousand times, that whole “alpha” thing is ridiculous. You’re kids. No one is alpha of anything.”

Caroline had entered the room, followed by MG and the two men from earlier. I smiled at the one I knew, Nick.  He’d given me the advice that I could choose my family and I had taken it to heart ever since. I was never without my friends, even when things got difficult. Which was good because I usually found myself sitting outside Alaric Saltzman’s office at least once or twice a week. And getting into fights with Jed, who had literally only been there a year, caused about half of those instances. He’d push my buttons right up until I was ready to lose it and then he’d disappear and cause me to lash out at something or someone else. I promised myself that his year things would be different.

“Jed just wants to get Hope kicked out before she can be alpha.” Josie said, ignoring her mother’s statement.

“Okay, I highly doubt that.” Caroline replied.

“It’s true!” Josie insisted. It was, honestly. But I nudged Josie to get her to shut up, because I didn’t need a teacher getting involved in my battles.

“Why do you say that?” Nick asked. Caroline groaned.

“Don’t encourage this.”

The twins began to talk over each other and argue “Well, he knows all about the rumors-” “That YOU spread, Lizzie.” “That’s not important, Josie. And I only said a couple of _harmless_ things.”

“Jed is just a stupid spoiled boy from a rich family who’s never had to earn anything a day in his life, and now he’s afraid he might actually have to work to become alpha someday.” MG cut in, “He isn’t getting anyone kicked out because he’s not worth getting kicked out over. Right, Hope?”

“Right. He’s not.” I silently thanked him. “Oh! Myra is looking for you.”

At the mention of Myra, MG’s demeanor completely changed. He laughed nervously, “I’d…I’d better go see what she wants then. Take care…everyone.” He took off immediately.

“God, he’s so obvious.” Lizzie muttered.

Caroline said goodbye to Nick and the other man, who seemed to be content to silently observe. They had apparently donated not just money this time, but books and other materials for classes as well. It would all be delivered before the first day of classes.

I quickly forgot about Jed as we drove back to Caroline’s home, while she blasted music and we sang obnoxiously loud along with the lyrics.

This year would turn out to be one of a lot of turmoil, but at least I had these small moments for now.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn’t exactly a surprise when Penelope dragged me to our room, closed the door, then performed a privacy spell—totally against school policy but literally every witch did it—and then paced nervously back and forth before finally speaking.

“So, I wanna tell you something.” She announced.

“I kinda picked up on that from like…everything you just did.”

She sat down on the bed next to me. “You know how I’ve been spending a lot of time with Josie? Like…a lot?”

I decided not tell her about how Lizzie had cornered me about two weeks ago and demanded to know if I knew anything about her sister’s “suspiciously close friendship” with Penelope.

We’d kind of put two and two together but I begged Lizzie not to say anything until Penelope or Josie explicitly said something themselves.

“Oh. I mean, kind of. Not really. I’ve been busy with things.”

She looked at me, squinting for a moment in thought. “Oh my god, it’s that obvious, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer.” I admitted.

She fell backwards on to the bed, and buried her face with one of the pillows. “We kind of decided to be ‘official’ a couple of days after her and Lizzie’s birthday party.”

“That was a month ago!” They’d managed to be this secretive for an entire month?

“She didn’t want to tell Lizzie right away.” She lifted the pillow and peeked at my face to gauge my reaction, “We didn’t want to tell you right away either. Not since you and MG had that fight because he wasn’t there to stop you from throwing Jed in the pond.”

“It’s not that he wasn’t there. It’s that he still got mad at me for it, even though he wasn’t around to stop it.” Even as I said it, I knew my logic was flawed. Whatever. This was the hill I’d chosen to die on. “He can’t get mad at me for things he’s too busy with _Myra_ to prevent.”

“Thank you for making my point for me.”

“So when are you and Josie telling Lizzie?” I asked, hastily changing the subject. She didn’t answer. “Penelope? You are telling Lizzie, right? She will kill us all if she’s the last to know.”

“I was kind of hoping we could tell her when we send the wedding invitations?” Penelope said hesitantly. Annoyed, I used my magic to send the pillow she was holding flying across the room. Feathers burst everywhere.  Penelope looked at the display with amusement and said to me in the nicest possible voice, “Well, at least you’re destroying your own property now. That’s progress.”

 

Lizzie’s reaction was better than we hoped, with only a few empty threats to cut the rest of us out of life if we ever held anything from her ever again.

Here is where I was met with a crossroads. I still had a major problem named Jed. MG, who usually encouraged me to take the high road and not seek out violent revenge, was preoccupied with Myra. Penelope, who usually encouraged more subtle tactics, was now spending every waking moment with Josie. More and more, I felt like a third wheel no matter what.

So that left me with Lizzie. Although Lizzie and I did not see eye to eye on many, many things, we could agree that a good display of violent rage was sometimes necessary for the greater good.

Or maybe we were just an awful influence on each other. But for the moment, our good influences were not around to keep us in check.

It wasn’t like we actively sought out each other’s company. It’s more like we realized at the same time we hadn’t really bothered to make any other close friends. Well, Lizzie had accumulated a team of minions, but no one she actually considered a “friend”.

Lizzie came into my room one day and threw herself on my bed. “The spring dance is this weekend, and I don’t have a dress. And Josie is, of course, busy. So you’re coming with me. You need a dress too, don’t you?”

I put my book down and shook my head. “Oh, I’m not even going.” Even among the people who had known me the longest, I’d gone from “that misunderstood little girl” to “that teenage girl no one talks to unless absolutely necessary.” It had something to do with the anger issues, if I had to make a wild guess. Going to the dance seemed like a waste of time to me.

She took this as a personal insult. “Excuse me? I’ve slaved away on the decorating committee for this dance for three months now. You’re going. If only to compliment me on the results of all my hard work. Come on. My dad said he’d pay for your dress. Since you’ve been like…”

She trailed off, realizing she may have gone too far, even by her standards.

“Abandoned by my family? Disowned?” I finished for her.

“Oh, how about reverse adopted?”

“I like that one too.” I grinned.

After a lot of back and forth, Lizzie convinced me to go dress shopping with her. We stopped by Alaric’s office for his credit card, and then got an uber into town and I let Lizzie lead the way down the street. I didn’t come into Mystic Falls much, except with the Saltzman twins or their parents. One time I tried to go with MG and his friends over the summer, but he admitted that the only reason his friends went was to feed “from the vein” without getting caught. He just went along with them to not stand out, but he didn’t feed outside of what was provided by the school.

Lizzie must have tried on every dress in the store. We finally narrowed it down to a blue one with a back that I argued was definitely lower than her parents would ever agree to, and a blush colored one with lace embellishing the bodice and a high-low hem on the skirt portion. I talked her into the second one, explaining that the blush color suited her. Now it was my turn and honestly I would have just gone with the first thing that I tried on but Lizzie decided to pick potential dresses for me and continued to toss more into the dressing room before I even tried on the first. After two hours of this, I settled on a light green one that I felt had a reasonable price tag.

“Okay, so I actually have shoes back at dad’s house that will go with this.” Lizzie said, “So we’ll get an Uber there and then we’ll be close enough that we can just cut through the cemetery back to the school.”

So we headed back to Alaric’s house, where Lizzie tore through her closet until she found the aforementioned shoes, leaving her room a complete and total nightmare, and we started off to the cemetery.

It was getting dark by this point, and even I got a little uneasy coming here at night. I knew the cemetery fairly well though, as it was the only quiet place I could escape to sometimes. As we walked, we heard several voices nearby. The closer we got, I realized with dread that it sounded suspiciously like Jed and his stupid little gang.

“Ugh, can we cut around a different way.” I whispered to Lizzie. It was about that time that I noticed a woman standing at what I knew was the Lockwood family plot. “God knows we don’t need to cause a scene.”

“But this is the shortest way. Hope, if you let dumb guys control where you walk in cemeteries, you’ll never get anywhere in life.”

“You know, if being a witch doesn’t work out for you, you should consider a career in greeting cards. Or fortune cookies.”

She took my hand and pulled me along, right towards the danger. On the other side of an ancient crypt, Jed and his friends stood talking loudly and laughing. I hoped we could just quickly go past unnoticed but they saw us immediately. Jed strode over to us and spied the shopping bags.

“Look who’s back from a shopping spree with daddy’s credit card.” He said to his friends. His eyes drifted to me and set in a glare, “And since that’s not a goodwill bag, I assume Saltzman is still footing the bill for your pointless existence?”

Lizzie stepped forward, hand flying up to the magic-containing amulet hanging around her neck. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t.” I glanced over to the woman at the Lockwood plot. The last thing we needed was for a human to get caught in a magic crossfire.

“Smart. Can’t have the headmaster’s daughter and the school charity case getting into trouble.” Jed snorted, “Wouldn’t look too good, would it?”

I was seeing red now. With my hand still on Lizzie’s shoulder, I knew she could feel the magic building up. But she wasn’t stopping me, or talking me down, or giving me some speech about how I’m “better than them.” Instead, she just crossed her arms and smiled. “Go ahead, Hope, give ‘em hell.”

“Wait, what?” Jed blinked, and his friends all took a few steps back.

“I’m not MG. I’m not Josie, or even Penelope, when she actually decides to keep it from going too far.” She said with a laugh, “So just like last time? At the pond? There’s no one to hold Hope Baker back right now, because I am definitely not that kind of friend. And we’re not on school property, so you’re fair game…aren’t you?”

Jed and his friends definitely looked a lot less certain now. I glanced towards the woman at the Lockwood plot again, trying to keep myself under control at least for her sake. She had turned and was looking at us now. But she hadn’t heard anything actually incriminating yet.

I smiled wickedly. “Well, you heard Lizzie. The choice is yours. Make it fast though.”

I could feel his fear. I kind of liked that. His eyes darted between us. “This isn’t over.” He muttered, and motioned for his lackeys to follow him as he turned and headed back to the school.

But now the woman at the Lockwood plot was walking towards us. “She didn’t hear anything specific.” Lizzie muttered, “Play it cool, like the spoiled, rich delinquents we’re supposed to be.”

“Everything alright over here?” the woman asked.

Lizzie and I nodded quickly.

“We’ve got a handle on the situation.” I said, “It’s like…late though. You shouldn’t be out here.”

She smirked, “I’m a wolf, don’t worry. I know all about your school. I was just here visiting a friend’s grave.”

Her eyes were on me though, and it made me feel…anxious. No, wait, the anxiety was coming from her. Maybe she just didn’t know what to make of a twelve year old girl and a thirteen year old (fourteen in a few days, but who’s counting) girl who just scared off a whole group of werewolf guys.

Lizzie’s hand was still on her necklace. I hadn’t totally let my guard down either.

“I’m not looking to start any trouble.” The woman said, “Not like those guys, certainly. I’m curious how exactly you managed to send them packing so fast though.”

Lizzie smiled, “You haven’t heard much about our school then. Because you’d know my friend, Hope, has a temper and like…infinitely powerful magic.”

I rolled my eyes, “We’re not trying to scare _everyone_ out of the cemetery, Lizzie.”

“Magic?” the woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “You…you can do magic?”

“Why is that surprising, you just said you’re werewolf and you know about our school?” Lizzie asked impatiently. She looked at me, “We really should get back. Curfew.”

Whatever surprise the woman experienced was quickly wiped away from her expression. “Well, I’d better be on my way then. Be careful out here. Not that you seem to have any trouble on your own.”

She said goodbye to us, and started on the path back towards the main entrance. Lizzie and I looked at her for a moment, and then back to each other. “Well, that was weird. She was weird. Come on, I want to go let Josie know my dress is better than hers.”

I looked back at the woman’s retreating form once more, and finally tore my gaze away. Just another werewolf passing through the strange town known as Mystic Falls. Nothing more.

* * *

 

Hayley Marshall had just laid flowers at Tyler Lockwood’s grave. She tried to do so every time she passed through Mystic Falls, even though she knew it was a stupid idea to come to this tragic little town. But though they'd parted ways on less than ideal terms after she'd helped that asshole Shane, she had heard of his passing a few years back, and wanted to make sure he wasn't forgotten. When she first heard of the school here, run by Alaric and Caroline, she did feel a twinge of regret. Maybe it could have helped the baby she gave up.

But she hadn’t thought about that child in years. She hadn't allowed herself to. She knew the family’s information, the Bakers, because she’d specifically picked them. She wanted Hope to be far from the supernatural world, far from _him,_ not to mention his long list of enemies. She hadn’t even attempted to seek her out in the years since she’d given her up. 

Tonight she’d come face to face with her daughter. The moment the name “Hope Baker” was mentioned, she’d stood in rapt attention watching the scene play out between the two girls and the group of werewolf boys. At first, she hardly dared to believe it, but if she looked close enough, even in the dark, she saw traces of herself in the girl’s features. And those eyes…those were the same fierce eyes that struck terror in the hearts of many for centuries.

It was completely by accident, for the record. She never would have dreamed her daughter would have either activated the werewolf curse by now, or… _turn out to be a witch_?

She was no expert on Mikaelson history 101, but she knew Klaus was certainly not a witch. But it had to be from his side, somehow.

She would need to talk to someone, soon, and figure out just what the hell was going on. Certainly not _him_. She’d just witnessed Hope exhibiting the traits she’d certainly inherited from her father’s side…and maybe somewhat from Hayley too if she was being honest with herself. She’d just been told of her daughter’s “infinitely powerful magic” which she reckoned might be true, considering how those boys had run for their lives. That was not something Klaus Mikaelson needed to get his hands on, ever.

But first, she needed to track down the Bakers, and figure out just why that boy had stated Alaric Saltzman was “footing the bill for her existence” and referred to her as “the school charity case.” Because that was not okay.


	6. Chapter 6

Hayley wasted no time tracking down the Bakers. She’d kept the address, even after all this time. She’d always worried that Hope might trigger the curse, she just thought she might have more time before it happened.

Standing outside their home, under the cover of darkness, she wasn’t sure what her next move should be. It was completely insane to be here. But she had to know.

They weren’t home anyway. She found a spare key under the mat—how very typical—and let herself in. She didn’t dare turn on any lights, in case a neighbor was to notice.

She saw pictures of a happy couple with a happy little boy. The boy’s photos literally filled the walls, and as she made her way through the house, she began to wonder if she’d gotten the right address at all. There was no trace of Hope’s existence.

She went upstairs, to the master bedroom, still looking for proof that this was the right now. She finally landed on a nightstand, and opened the drawer to reveal its contents. Underneath the assortment of random items that had been tossed in there, she finally found something.

A weathered photograph featured an auburn-haired little girl on a bicycle smiling back at her. Hayley guessed the girl was around 6 or 7. But she still knew this was Hope. She flipped the photograph over. There was only a date, no other identifiers.

They’d completely erased her from their lives.

Hayley felt the tears falling down her cheeks. She’d made the wrong choice. She’d fix this. And these people would answer for what they’d done. But not tonight. She had a lot to do first, and she still had no idea how she would properly introduce herself to her daughter.

* * *

 

I looked stupid. Penelope swore that I didn’t, and she even did my make up for me but I still felt absolutely ridiculous in this dress with my hair and make-up done.

“Honestly, who am I trying to impress?” I asked her.

“Think of it as: they need to be the ones impressing _you_.” She said with a smirk, “You look great, relax.”

I took a deep breath, and we made our way downstairs to the ballroom—because this would be the type of school to have a ballroom. This dance in particular was only for the middle grades, the older kids would have their own dance next weekend. But there were a few older students there to help out with keeping an eye on things and keeping the snack table stocked, MG included.

“Is he wearing a tuxedo?” Penelope whispered to me, and I giggled, “I didn’t even know he owned one.”

MG made his way over to us. “I heard that. And it might surprise you to know, I wore many, _far too many,_ tuxedos in my human life. Miss Forbes ordered us to dress nice even though it’s not our dance. Something about ruining the aesthetic.”  He pulled at the collar in frustration.

That sounded about right.

Penelope spotted Josie and made a beeline for her, and I followed behind. She grabbed Josie’s hand and led her onto the dance floor. In typical awkward middle school fashion, the dance floor was practically empty at the moment. Lizzie, who was definitely not to be outdone, grabbed her own date and followed suit. She’d met some boy named Ian that she seemed to really like. Or at least, she liked that he gave her attention and that she was no longer the twin without a significant other.

After they got started, more people began to join.

I danced with like, one guy named Weston, and it wasn’t totally awful. But he was my partner in science class maybe twice last year so I didn’t know much about him at all. It was nice anyway. After that I tried really hard not to just stand around awkwardly, but that was easier said than done. My friends pulled me back onto the dance floor a couple of times, but it was clear this was not my element.

“If it’s any consolation,” MG said when he found me again, “I would not be caught dead at the one we’re having next weekend if Myra hadn’t bullied me into it.”

“Technically you’ll still be caught dead there.”

“Touché.” He laughed. He looked across the dance floor and spotted a couple that was dancing closer than Caroline-approved-standards, “I gotta go terrorize some lovebirds, be right back.”

I decided to take the opportunity to slip out of the room and go outside for some fresh air. There was still a bit of a chill in the evening air, but it was too hot, too loud, and too packed with people inside. This was a lot better. Plus, I really didn’t get very cold even in the dead of winter. I sat down at the fountain at the main entrance and just watched the water for a while, trying to just empty my mind for a bit.

“Well, this is sad.” Said a voice behind me. I groaned.

“What do you want, Jed.” I snapped.

His friends were lurking nearby, as usual. He was such a coward.

 “Listen, can we just get this over with because I’m not in the mood.” I said to him, “So I’ll run through how this is going to go. You’re going to call me an orphan, or a charity case, or a freak, or something. I’m going to threaten to drown you in this stupid fountain, and let me remind you, I won’t even have to lift a finger to do so, and then you’re going to run scared with your tail between your legs.”

His friends looked apprehensive, but Jed was quite determined tonight. I realized when he got closer that I could smell alcohol on his breath.

“Great, stupid and drunk. What a combination.” I rolled my eyes, “Maybe it’ll hurt less when I re-arrange your limbs.”

He didn’t budge. He only seemed to get angrier. “Go ahead, show me what you got. I bet even without your friends to hold you back, you wouldn’t do anything on school property. Because then where would you go? Who would even want you?”

“Oh, I think my particular ability to slice you to ribbons with my mind would be in very high demand.” I shrugged. This was a bluff, of course, I wasn’t totally sure I could do something like that. Or that I would want to. But it did make him falter for just a second. I got up and started walking back to the entrance.  Lizzie would definitely murder me if I ruined this dance.

He didn’t give up though. “You’re not even a good wolf. You spend all your time with that vampire, MG and his friend. Not to mention Saltzman’s kids. It’s no wonder your parents replaced you.”

I stopped dead. “What did you say?”

“I got into Saltzman’s office the other night. I was looking for his whiskey but I found your file.” He jeered, “I couldn’t resist. I wanted to know what planet you were born on.”

I clenched my fists. He needed to stop.

“But then I found out why you literally never go home. I bet it sucks to know your parents got rid of you the moment they found out they could have a baby of their own. A normal one.”

I turned towards him, and all that rage boiled over. I could barely even see straight but all I knew was that I wanted to rip his throat out with my teeth. The second I thought it, my ankle snapped.

_Wait, what?_

My other bones started breaking, and re-arranging. The pain was not nearly as bad as it had been when I was nine, but it was definitely not for the faint of heart. It was too late to even _try_ to understand why, but I was transforming. The full moon had already come and gone this month. This wasn’t possible.

“Is she…”

“No way.”

“That’s impossible! Run!”

“Hope!” The last voice I heard was MG, and I thought desperately that he needed to stay away, before I lost myself to the wolf completely.

I don’t know how long I was out. I woke up on the cold floor of one of the transformation rooms in the basement. It was little more than a cell, but we weren’t actually supposed to call it that. I groaned, still trying to recall the events from before. Also, I was naked, with nothing more than a blanket draped over me. I could feel wolfsbane coursing through my system even now, and every movement was agony. I kind of remember several instances of stinging pain. They must have pumped me full of the stuff.

I wrapped the blanket around myself and looked around. I spied the locker on the wall by the door, and really hoped someone had had the foresight to put some clothes in it for me. I stood on shaky legs and walked over to check. Thank god.

After I got dressed I felt a lot more human, and more like myself again. But then I remembered last night and hearing MG’s voice call my name before everything went black.

“Oh no.” I whispered, sitting down with my head in my hands. I didn’t want to know what I had done.

“Hope?”

My head shot up. “MG?”

I rushed to the small window in the door and peered out. He was sitting against the wall, across from the room. He looked up and smiled sleepily. “I was wondering when you would wake up. They told me to go to bed and they’d come get me when you woke but…I didn’t want you to be alone.”

I was certainly grateful but there were more pressing concerns. “Are you okay? You were out there when…when…” I couldn’t say it.

“You might have nipped me. Just a bit.” He saw my horrified expression and quickly continued, “It’s fine, it’s fine. Apparently the school keeps doses of the cure on hand. I’m good as new.”

A long silence hung over us. Obviously we needed to discuss the elephant in the room. Or the wolf in the room.

“I don’t know how it happened.” I whispered. “He just kept pushing. And all I could think was that I wanted to rip him to shreds. And I just…” I trailed off, “Did anyone…?”

“Everyone’s fine. They shot you full of a ton of wolfsbane. You dropped like a rock after a few minutes. Dr. Saltzman and Miss Forbes are going to figure this out. I’m going to go up now and see if we can get you out okay? Hang tight.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be trusted to be let out of here, if “transforming at will” was now on the list of weird things I could do.

* * *

 

MG went up to Dr. Saltzman’s office, where he could already hear the headmaster and headmistress talking in low voices. The door was closed, and he decided to pause for a moment and listen in.

“When do you think you can get here?” Ms. Forbes said on the phone, “Tomorrow morning? Okay. Perfect. Thank you.” I heard her hang up the phone and sigh.

“I don’t know about this.” Dr. Saltzman’s voice said, sounding uneasy.

“He’s the only other person I know of who can turn at will, Alaric. He’s the only person who might actually know how to help her.”

“He’s still _Klaus Mikaelson,_ Caroline. I know he gives the school money, I know he lets us keep his blood on hand, but I’ve also heard about the violent takeover in New Orleans and the destruction in his wake no matter where he goes. Maybe he tries for you, like once or twice a year when he puts on a big show of donating money, supplies, and trying to woo you.”

“He’s not-”

“He is. The girls even notice it.” Alaric cut her off, “But he’s still Klaus. He’s got a whole city under his thumb now, what’s going to be next?”

“I trust him, Alaric. He wants to help.” She told Dr. Saltzman, “We’ll talk to Hope when MG comes back to tell us when she wakes up.”

MG turned and walked away from the office. Maybe Ms. Forbes did trust him, and he believed that she did. He had heard enough from Lizzie and Josie about their mom’s friend to know that he wouldn’t try anything at the school.

But he knew enough history to know what kind of person Klaus Mikaelson was. He’d heard the stories from New Orleans. The city had nearly been destroyed because of some botched ritual, and while he’d saved it in time, he’d taken the opportunity to seize control. The humans, werewolves, and witches, were completely at the mercy of the vampire faction and Klaus’s whims.

Hope was volatile, angry, and powerful, and MG had worked tirelessly to keep that anger from destroying her and everyone in her path. He’d felt like there was no purpose to his life before their chance meeting, due to being eternally fifteen and  being terrified to leave the one place that had taken him in when he became a vampire. Now he had a purpose: protect his friend from becoming the kind of person Klaus Mikaelson would no doubt turn her into.

All Klaus would need to do is whisk her away and they might never see Hope again.

Having snuck into Ms. Forbes’ office more times than he could count, he sprinted down the hallway, and found the keys for the cells downstairs in record time, and hurried back to the basement. He was getting Hope out of here.

* * *

 

I heard MG’s feet bounding down the stairs and then the familiar sound of the keys that opened up the door. After fumbling for a moment, he found the correct one and swung it open. I hugged him and he quickly returned the hug before pulling back.

“We have to leave.” He said to me.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Come one, we don’t have a lot of time and we should pack up.” He hurried me to my room, where he didn’t factor in Penelope Park waiting inside. MG refused to tell her much except that it was imperative that I get out of here as soon as possible.

“Well, I’m going too.” She said, going to her closet and pulling out her own duffel bag.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Your parents will lose their minds.” Not only did Penelope actually have a family, they were wealthy and very actively involved with the school. They'd be furious if Salvatore Boarding School just let their daughter wander off. 

“Let me handle them, okay? I can get them to do whatever I want. I'm coming with you guys.” She continued to throw clothes into a bag.

“What about Josie?”

“Oh, our epic love story can conquer this. Easy.” She said confidently, “Besides, you guys could use an extra witch. And I’ve been mastering spells a lot longer than Hope. _And_ I’m part of this little makeshift family, right?”

She tossed her grimoires into her bag as well. Along with a curling iron, and a stuffed unicorn Josie had won her at a carnival in Mystic Falls. She nodded in satisfaction and zipped up the bag.

“Fine, fine, we don’t have time for this. But you’re only coming along until we get to a safe place.” MG compromised, “then you have to come back to school.”

MG went to get his stuff, and we slipped out the side entrance, out of view of the administration wing. We had to walk into town, which was a bit of a pain, and then MG compelled our way onto a Greyhound bus bound for Richmond, where we would inevitably hop on another bus, to a much farther destination.

MG asked me what I knew about the Original vampires. I told him he knows I always fall asleep in History of Vampirism. He told me who Klaus Mikaelson was, the first hybrid and the most diabolical of them all. And now this fearsome ancient vampire was going to be coming after me. If he was right, we had no choice but to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever post something and then notice like five thousand typos and have to go back and edit five thousand separate times because you don't have the capacity to notice them all in one read-through? That's what this chapter has been for me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure, I don't think it's ever been discussed in the show if Hope can heal others with her blood (aside from Hayley while in utero) but I felt like it wasn't that far outside the realm of possibility.

“So you mean to tell me she just…wandered off?” Klaus asked incredulously. He tried to remain calm. After all, this was Caroline he was speaking to, and there a select few people he tried to keep his temper under control with. He and Elijah were currently sitting in Alaric’s office, after receiving word less than halfway through their journey to Mystic Falls that the werewolf-witch child with the strange ability to turn at will had all but vanished. They decided to continue to Mystic Falls as planned anyway, and plot a way to find the girl.

“And it comes as no surprise that Milton and Penelope are also strangely absent.” Alaric said with an exasperated sigh, “We’ve contacted Penelope’s parents. They’ve uh…been less than helpful.”

“She’s called them. She’s alive. That’s all that matters, because they just don’t want word getting out that she’s run away with a vampire and a werewolf.” Caroline added, “And there was something about her blackmailing them, which strangely doesn’t surprise me.”

“We’ve not heard from Hope’s or MG’s parents in years.” Alaric said, “Look, we’ve already got some of our best witches doing locator spells, but it looks like Hope and Penelope are already a step ahead in that department. Hope is powerful, Penelope knows some advanced spells, they can do a lot.”

“And you just…let her wander off.” Klaus repeated yet again. Caroline glared at him.

“Judge me when you’ve got an entire school to run, Klaus.”

“Well, I do run an entire city.”

Caroline huffed in frustration and stormed out of the office, where to, she didn’t exactly know. Maybe she’d interrogate her daughters for the millionth time in twenty-four hours, or ransack Hope and Penelope’s dorm room for some secret clue.

“So what do we know about this girl?” Klaus asked Alaric impatiently. It was clear that Saltzman did not really want Klaus there at all. He definitely got that vibe the moment he arrived.

Maybe Alaric’s suspicions weren’t entirely baseless. Klaus did, after all, see quite a lot of potential benefit in mentoring the child. But in his defense, he did actually care for her well-being. For some stupid reason.

Alaric rubbed his temples. He’d grown tired of the presence of Originals in his school. “We know she has witch blood and werewolf blood. But the werewolf side seems to be…enhanced? We don’t know why. She heals faster, her athletic abilities are stronger than even our senior werewolves, and now this. And her power is barely manageable, even after years of study. It doesn’t help that she has a temper—admittedly all the werewolves do—and combined with all that power…it’s not been easy. I don’t understand why they’d run off though. Or why Milton would let it happen, let alone go along with her.”

“Perhaps he was the mastermind.” Elijah offered, speaking for the first time. Klaus and Alaric looked at him inquiringly.

“What makes you say that?” Alaric asked.

“You said you told him to come get you as soon as she woke. It appears that instead of coming to get you, he stole the keys to get her out.”

“He’s a good kid. He wouldn’t run away with two other students on whim.”

“Oh, I doubt it was a whim.” Elijah assured him, “Milton knew our identities, at the beginning of the school year. He seems like an intelligent young man. Maybe he did come up to get you when she woke up, and maybe he overheard something he didn’t like.”

Realization came over Alaric’s face. “You’re saying he heard we were calling Klaus to come see her.”

“And being the intelligent young man that he is, and having knowledge of my family’s unfortunately violent history…he made a decision.”

“Well, he’ll come to regret that decision.” Klaus growled.

“Hey, no harm comes to my students.” Alaric said firmly. “We’ll get them back, peacefully. Are you going to help or not.”

“Of course.” Klaus said, regaining his composure, “On one small condition.”

Alaric hated this already. “Whatever could that be?”

“The other two students will be returned safely to you, but the girl comes with us.”

Alaric laughed out loud. “Absolutely not.”

“Fine, have it your way. Elijah and I will search for them on our own, kill the other two, and take her anyway.”

“Niklaus.” Elijah snapped, “We’re not threatening children.”

Klaus shrugged, “Okay, well, _I’ll_ search for them, and _I’ll_ kill the other two and take the girl anyway. Which would you prefer, Alaric?”

Alaric and Klaus stared coldly at each other. Neither spoke.

Caroline burst into the room a moment later. “Matt’s been making inquiries for me. He says they might have been spotted in Richmond but they were boarding another bus. I’m going.”

“Oh, I’ll accompany you.” Klaus said with a grin, ignoring Caroline’s disgruntled expression. “Elijah?”

“I think I’ll be returning home for the moment.” He said, much to Klaus’s surprise. It was a lie, of course, but Elijah felt that perhaps he needed to find this child before his brother did.

* * *

 

_You can choose your family, you know._

It was more than a little confusing that the vampire who had offered me that sage advice was the same one who’d supposedly terrorized the earth for centuries. He certainly didn’t seem scary at the time.

“I’m just saying, why couldn’t you have compelled us plane tickets? First class?” Penelope said.

“You wanna say that a little louder? I don’t think the whole bus heard you yet.” MG hissed, “We’re trying _not_ to draw attention.” He took a sip from his to-go cup, which he’d recently emptied the contents of a blood bag into. He’d apparently raided the school’s freezer before we set off on our journey. His carry-on bag was mostly blood bags, and icepacks.

“Twelve hours on a bus to Atlanta is not my preferred method of travel.”

“I told you not to come. Hope, did I not tell her not to come?”

“Should we really be on a bus for 12 hours?” I asked, “Maybe we should ditch at the next rest stop.”

“Find a nice family on their way to vacation somewhere comfortable, compel them to bring us along…” Penelope added.

It wasn’t the worst idea.

“You guys don’t understand.” MG said, “I went through this super obsessive period where I researched all I could about these guys—particularly after they started _showing up at our school_ —and we need to be cautious. This one woman, her name was Katarina, she ran from Klaus for five hundred years.”

“Sounds like just needs a hobby.” Penelope deadpanned.

“This is his hobby.” MG said, ignoring her attempt at lightening the mood, “This is what he does.”

We argued, but eventually decided to stay en route to Atlanta. Once we arrived, MG got us a hotel room and compelled the man at the front desk to forget our faces. Penelope and I combined our power to produce a decent cloaking spell to prevent us from being tracked. We were exhausted by then, and fell asleep the moment we got settled.

The next morning-presumably the morning Klaus would be arriving at our school, MG went off to find a blood bank and replenish his supply, while Penelope searched for any other helpful spells and I studied MG’s notes from class about the Original vampires.

The years of bloodshed were like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“Ow!” Penelope yelped. I looked up from the stack of notebooks. “Papercut.”

“Too bad MG isn’t here. He could heal it and I don’t think we packed band-aids.”

“With all the weird things you can do, maybe your blood would heal it.” She joked. And then she thought about it for a moment. “Hey…”

“That’s insane. Werewolf blood doesn’t work like that.”

“It doesn’t work like a lot of the ways it seems to work for you though.”

She rummaged in MG’s bag and produced a small pocket knife.

“Give me your hand.” She demanded.

I laughed. “So you can slice it open? I’m good.”

“Come on, you’ll heal anyway. And won’t you feel bad if I bleed to death when you could have saved my life?” She fell back on the bed, dramatically, “I feel faint, I see a bright light!”

I rolled my eyes and stuck my hand out. Way too eagerly, Penelope grabbed my palm and made a small cut across the center. She then frowned, trying to decide the best way to go about it, and eventually collected some of the blood on her fingers on her non-injured hand and brought them to her mouth.

“Ew.” She said, forcing the blood down. We’d definitely reached a new level of weird for our friendship. “MG drinks this stuff all the time? How unfortunate.”

I went back to reading MG’s notes while I waited for my new injury to heal. I was pretty sure nothing would come of this. I was quickly brought back out of my reading by Penelope nudging me repeatedly.

“Hope, look! Look, look, look!”

She showed me her finger. The cut was gone. Now we were both wide-eyed with amazement.

“We really need to find out what kind of werewolves you come from.” Penelope said.

Maybe she was right.

MG came back a while later, and Penelope told him about our latest discovery. He seemed perplexed about it too, like me. But I insisted I didn’t want ponder my genetic background just yet, especially not while we were on the run.

Later that night, they’d both gone to sleep after we’d binged on pizza—again courtesy of MG and his abilities—and I laid awake staring into the darkness. What was I? What if I was dangerous to my friends.

Penelope was asleep next to me, and MG was sprawled across the other bed. I looked at them both worriedly. I’d spent all day educating myself on Klaus and his notorious family. The people he targeted, even if he didn’t kill them he killed everyone they loved and everyone who tried to help them.

My friends were in danger just by being here.

We’d left our bags fully packed, in case we needed to make a quick exit. I slipped out of bed and slid my shoes on. I had to a decision to make, but first I needed to separate myself from my friends.

I walked down the street, still in the sweatpants and an old t-shirt that I had went to bed in, wondering what my next plan should be. I didn’t have the benefit MG’s compulsion, and I didn’t have any money. I didn’t even have my phone. I’d left it at school so we couldn’t be tracked that way either.

I needed a quiet place to do the spell I needed to do. Because in my hours of reading, there was still one name that stood out that I _might_ have a chance to reason with. Elijah Mikaelson was frequently described as the “honorable” one. He was just as lethal as the rest of them, but possessed at least some sense of morality.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Elijah was already on his way to Atlanta, because while MG had compelled the bus driver in Richmond, Virginia to ignore their presence, he’d failed to compel the attendant who loaded their luggage onto the bus. He politely asked the man to forget all of the information he knew, because he knew Klaus would not be far behind. He’d managed to get a head-start due to Klaus and Caroline’s bickering, thankfully.

He thought for sure once he got to Atlanta he would quickly lose that advantage, because he had no idea where to start, or where three teenagers would decide to go.

So of course, imagine his surprise when he stopped momentarily at a 24-hour diner a few miles north of Atlanta, and looked up from his cup of coffee to find Hope Baker sitting across from him.

* * *

 

“Well, that was relatively easy.” He remarked, surprised but not quite as freaked out as Josie had been when I and Penelope had used the spell to appear in her room earlier that day. 

“I’m not actually here.” I said quickly. “It’s astral projection. I just kind of had to like…think really hard about who I needed to speak to, and do the spell, and now I’m here. Kind of here.”

The spell I was using didn’t do much to discern an exact location and was easy enough to block out with the spells Penelope and I had used to shield us from detection. But Penelope and I had figured out that closer targets required less magic and energy than those farther away. Elijah, in particular, had not required much magic at all. That was unnerving.

“I’m impressed.” And he did genuinely sound impressed.

“It wasn’t that hard.” I said confidently, and then added, “And it’s not requiring as much power as when we contacted my friends at school earlier today. So I’m guessing you’re not that far away…”

“I’m just about to pass through Atlanta, why do you ask?”

I gulped nervously. “How did you find us so fast?” I tried to listen for my surroundings where my actual body was located, in case anyone should try to barge into the Taco Bell bathroom I had barricaded myself inside.

“Your young vampire friend should be more thorough in covering your tracks.” He said simply. “We mean you no harm, Hope. But obviously you don’t believe that or you and your friends wouldn’t have fled. Would you care to share your reasoning?”

As if he couldn’t guess. “We’ve heard the stories of you and your family.” I said carefully, “I don’t think you can blame anyone for being a little bit skeptical of your intentions.”

“I believe my brother means what he says when he states he wants to help you gain control of your werewolf nature.” Elijah replied, “But I’m not a fool, and I’m sure you’re not either. I know he sees opportunity in your immense power.”

“And you?”

“You won’t be able to outrun him forever.” Elijah said calmly, “Many have tried. So instead of running away, I’d like to offer my guidance on how to deal with him. I’ll ensure you have a voice in all of this, and an ally. I’d also like to offer you the opportunity to find out your parentage, because I think it will answer a lot of questions for us all.”

“I don’t need to know my family.”

“Well, it was less of an offer and more of an insistence. We need to know where you came from if we have any hope of helping you control your abilities.”

“Are my friends going to be safe?” They had been willing to sacrifice so much for me. It wasn’t right. I hoped they’d forgive me for this.

“Tell me where they are and I’ll happily inform Penelope’s father so he can send someone for them. They will remain perfectly safe.”

I bit my lip. “So what do I do now?”

“Tell me where you’re located and I’ll be along shortly to collect you. And then we can be on our way to New Orleans.”

I swallowed my fear and told him the address. After that, I finished the spell and gathered up my things from the floor of the bathroom—I’d spread a layer of paper towels out, I have some standards—and went out into the dining area to wait and tried really hard not to lose my nerve. MG and Penelope were going to be furious, and I’m sure Dr. Saltzman, Ms. Forbes, and Klaus were already pretty mad too. I didn’t need to add Elijah to that list.

* * *

 

Hayley took a deep breath and walked up to the school. She’d heard a lot about it, for sure. Werewolves from packs around the country had started sending their children here when they activated the curse. It was one of the safest places to be a werewolf—even if that was ironically alongside a bunch of witches and vampires.

Inside, she found a sign that pointed to the headmaster’s office. She hoped Caroline would be around too. They were never quite on the best terms but she figured a familiar face might be helpful.

She knocked on Alaric Saltzman’s door, and heard him say “Just let yourself in.” from the other side. She found him digging through paperwork, which was sat on top of a large map sprawled across his desk.

“Hi, I’m um…I’m looking for Caroline?” she asked nervously.

“Oh, she’s kind of on a business trip right now.” He said that tensely, as if there were more to the story. Hayley decided not to press for specifics. “What can I help you with?”

She couldn’t believe she was really doing this. After all these years.

“I’m looking for Hope Baker then.” She said finally.

Alaric looked up from the paperwork, puzzled, “Yeah, you and everyone else, it seems. What’s your interest in her?” he asked suspiciously.

She had to get it out now before she chickened out. “I’m her birth mother.”

The look on his face was honestly almost comical. His jaw quite literally dropped, and when he took the time to really get a good look at her, he could see it. The resemblance was subtle, but it was there.

It really took him a minute to get his thoughts together, and then she could see on his face that something was definitely wrong. “She’s, well, she’s kind of disappeared at the moment. We’re looking for her. Caroline is out right now trying to track her down. And she’s…got help.”

Hayley regarded him warily. “Help from whom?”

“Klaus Mikaelson.”

Now it was Hayley’s turn to pick her jaw up off the floor. In the short time she’d had to process the fact that her daughter was here in Mystic Falls, not only had that same daughter disappeared, but Klaus was actively in pursuit? Did he _know_? How could he possibly know?

“We have to find her before he does, Alaric.”


	8. Chapter 8

I guess I was expecting some ruthless, ancient beast who would toss me in the trunk of a car or something. I wasn’t expecting Elijah Mikaelson to greet me warmly outside of that Taco Bell and politely open the passenger door of his car for me to get in. I wasn’t expecting him to ask my music preferences or whether I would rather have the windows up or down.

Elijah called Penelope’s father. Apparently, he was quite familiar with the Park family. I wondered if Penelope knew. According to Elijah, her parents’ involvement with the Originals was “the least of their rather shady business dealings.”

Next, he had me cloak us so Klaus and Caroline couldn’t catch up so quickly. He wanted to buy us time so we could visit a witch who supposedly knew a spell for detecting parentage.

“It’s a six hour drive, Miss Baker, it will be a lot more bearable if you stop looking at me like I’m going to attack you at any moment.” Elijah said to me after a long stretch of awkward silence. “Besides, from what I hear, you’re quite dangerous as well.”

“I have my moments.” I admitted.

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what happened the other night, when you transformed involuntarily? What do you think triggered it?” He asked. “We really only got the boys’ side of the story, and I’m sure you can imagine they made themselves out to be quite the innocent victims.

I snorted. “Hardly.”

“So tell me your side.”

I really didn’t think he would believe me, but I launched into a re-telling of the night anyway. I even included the things Jed had said to me, because I wanted to make it clear I was definitely provoked.

“When I want to hurt someone, it usually comes out in my magic.” I said softly. I stared out the window at the passing scenery as I spoke. “This was different. I wanted to kill him. After that, the wolf just…took over.”

“And it scares you.” Elijah confirmed.

“Yeah but…it’s not transforming that scares me. It’s the fact that in that brief moment before I lost myself, I was glad because I thought I was definitely going to kill him.” I waited for a reaction, but Elijah’s face betrayed nothing, “I liked that I could kill him. I like it when people like him are afraid of me. That’s what scares me.”

When he didn’t say anything, I continued. I had been holding everything in for two days now. “Without my friends to help me control it, I don’t know what kind of person I’ll be. Sometimes I wish they would just step aside. This one night in the cemetery, when Lizzie told me to do whatever I wanted to Jed and his stupid friends, I _loved_ the fear it instilled.”

“Well, they do sound particularly awful.” Elijah said, and then to my surprise, he joked, “And I know a thing or two about particularly awful individuals.”

“They are.” I agreed. “But…that’s how I knew I need to find a way to control this. All this anger. And now Klaus wants me to be a weapon, I’m sure.”

I looked to Elijah for confirmation. He nodded reluctantly. “He’s expressed interest.”

I wanted to try and astral project to check on my friends, but Elijah didn’t want to do anything that might lead Klaus to us. He said that for now, as far as the school was concerned, Penelope’s parents were contacted by an anonymous source and that I was not with them when the Park family’s security detail arrived at the hotel.

“You’re asking me to put a lot of trust in you, you know.” I said, while shameless drinking the milkshake I’d gotten from a drive-thru at our last stop, about halfway through our journey now. I mean…he’d _offered_ , and I wasn’t one to turn down free food. “What do I get out of this again?”

“Aside from hopefully finding out who your family is, you get to avoid spending your entire life on the run while Klaus slaughters everyone you care about.” He was dead serious as he said this. That did sound like a bargain, when he put it that way.

“I talked to him once, when I was ten.” I said, “Of course, I didn’t know who he was. I just thought he was Miss Forbes’ nice friend, Nick.”

“He’s mentioned it. He asks about you every time he sees Caroline.” I started to wonder exactly how long he’d been planning for an opportunity to take me away from the school. Elijah answered that question for me, “He wanted to see if your power would remain strong. If it would…be worth his time. But, in his defense, I do think his interest in you was partly empathetic. His parents let him down immensely as well.”

“How touching.” I muttered.

We arrived in New Orleans in the early hours of the morning. Elijah parked his car and we walked down the street to a restaurant named Rousseau’s. “We’re supposed to find a witch here?” I asked. The placed wasn’t even open for business yet.

Elijah ignored the sign, and let himself in, because apparently he had a key. I remembered reading about how Klaus owned the city. I guess that extended to the rest of the family.

 “Miss Deveraux?” He called out. I wasn’t a big fan of the shift in his tone of voice. He’d almost seemed like a normal person on the drive here. Now he was back to all business, with a mildly threatening undertone.

A woman in an apron stormed out from the kitchen, looking quite irritated by his presence. “I have prep to do, Elijah. What is it?”

“Sophie, this is Hope. We require a simple spell from your sister. I’m told she’s quite gifted with the type of spell we need.”

Sophie rolled her eyes, not even the slightest intimidated. “Fine. I’ll call her. Make yourselves at home, I guess.”

Elijah seemed perfectly used to this hostility. She went back into the kitchen, and Elijah handed me the remote to the TV above the bar. I was a little bit too distracted by the impending spell to find out who my parents were, but I flipped through channels anyway until I landed on the food network.

“Have you ever watched Cutthroat Kitchen?” I asked Elijah. He shook his head, and I wasn’t exactly surprised. “Well, you’re missing out. I’ve seen every episode.”

I very much hoped I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt.

* * *

 

“I appreciate and share your concern, Miss Marshall, but we’re really dealing with a situation right now.” Alaric had told Hayley the previous evening. As for the “situation” in question, he was currently refusing to discuss it with her.

That morning, she’d once again turned up at his office demanding answers, and demanding to be involved in the search effort. “Until we have definitive proof that you are who you say you are, I can’t just release a student’s personal information to you.”

“She is in _danger_ , as long as Klaus is looking for her. And if he finds her…I don’t know what will happen.” Hayley said for probably the hundredth time. She couldn’t tell him exactly why she was concerned. If there was one thing she could attempt to preserve, it was that Hope would never know she was related to that man.

“And I promise you we are not just going to hand a fourteen year old girl over to the most notorious vampire on the planet.” Alaric tried to reassure her, “But she turned completely _at will_ the other night, outside of a full moon. And there’s only one other person we know of who can do that. Klaus.”

“She turned on her own?” God, just how many crazy abilities had she accidentally given her child?

“And there I go sharing a student’s information with you again.” Alaric threw his hands up, “I’ll text Caroline and remind her to keep an eye on Klaus. But I can’t let you be actively involved in this until we have proof.”

* * *

 

“Alaric said Milton and Penelope have been found, but Hope is still missing. It looks like she slipped away from them last night and she’s still cloaking herself.” Caroline said. She read on further in the stream of texts she’d received, “Also Penelope swears Hope’s blood healed a cut on her finger? Almost as fast as vampire blood. Klaus, is that possible?”

“Love, just the other day, I didn’t think it was possible for a werewolf, even one with witch abilities, to transform outside of a full moon unless they also happened to be a vampire. I’m not sure where we stand on what’s ‘possible’ right now.” He was currently trying Elijah’s phone for the twentieth time, and for the twentieth time it went straight to voice mail. He tossed it in the backseat. “Apparently, my brother answering his phone is no longer in the realm of possible things.”

“Are you hungry? I’m hungry. And I need to get out of this car.” Caroline said. They’d at least found out the kids had made it as far as Atlanta, where MG and Penelope were found, so they were headed in that direction now in hopes that they would find a lead there.

They pulled off at the next exit and Caroline picked a restaurant based on reviews from about five different sources. Klaus had always quite admired her extreme, and borderline obsessive, attention to detail. Even in things as simple as where to eat lunch.

“Well, we’re almost to Atlanta, thank god.” Caroline said as she stabbed a piece of broccoli with her fork, “What’s the plan when we arrive? Go door to door and show people her picture?”

Caroline pulled out a school photo of Hope and laid it out on the table, as if staring at it long enough might allow her a quick look inside the girl’s brain so she could see where a terrified fourteen year old werewolf would go.

The waitress, Pam, came by and refilled their drinks. She spied the photograph of Hope on the table. “Oh, I saw her just last night!”

“Excuse me?” Klaus asked, snatching up the photograph, “This girl right here?”

The woman nodded, “Sure did. I pulled a double yesterday, and I think my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. It’s like she just appeared out of nowhere, and then a few minutes later she was gone again. Very strange. No one else noticed it though, so I didn’t want to bring it up and look crazy.” She laughed. Caroline knew this was likely to be the work of a spell. But why would Hope astral project to this little diner?

Caroline and Klaus looked at each other, and then back to Pam. “Was she with anyone?” Caroline asked.

“There was man, he seemed quite nice. Very sharply dressed.” She smiled fondly at the memory.

Klaus made a low growl from the back of his throat, and Caroline quickly jumped in, “That’s super helpful, thank you so much. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do, Pam.” She threw in compulsion, ensuring the woman would leave quickly before Klaus took out his rage on her.

“I hadn’t expected to find out what a traitor my brother is today.” Klaus said.

“Klaus, we don’t want to jump to conclusions…” Caroline reminded him slowly. But it was strange that Elijah had contact with her and hadn’t alerted anyone. It was even stranger that she had initiated that contact herself.

“Oh, I’ve got a dagger back home with his name on it.” Klaus growled.

* * *

 

The restaurant was opening soon so Jane Anne Deveraux led us to the storage room so she could do the spell in private. I allowed her to use a knife to draw some of my blood and she let it drip into a basin.

She then placed pieces of parchment paper in two piles on either side of bowl, as well as encircling the whole thing in salt and lighting candles around the perimeter.

“Once I do the spell, the papers will catch fire, and once they’re done burning, one piece will be left from each pile, stating the names of your parents. If you want, we can try to locate them as well.” She told me. I nodded nervously.

“Are you ready for this, Hope?” Elijah asked, in a surprisingly gentle voice.

“Yes.” I said decisively. “Let’s get it over with.”

Jane Anne said the words to the spell, and had me join hands with her and repeat them over and over. The flames on the candles grew taller and brighter, and the blood in the bowl began to swirl violently. Finally, the papers ignited and burned brightly for a minute before the flames finally died down and were extinguished. Each pile of ash contained a crumpled up piece of paper.

“Okay. You should be able to read them now.” Jane Anne said softly.

Yes. I should definitely do that. I needed to.

I still just stared at the papers blankly. “I can’t.”

After a moment, Jane Anne picked one up, and read the name. “Your mother’s name is Hayley Marshall, hun. See? Painless.” She offered an encouraging smile.

She picked up the second page and flattened out the wrinkles. She read the name silently, and then her eyes flickered to Elijah and then back to the paper in confusion. “Something must have gone wrong. This isn’t right.”

“What does it say?” Elijah asked.

“I can do it again.” She said quickly, “I must have done it wrong. There’s no way. That’d be a heck of a loophole.”

“What’s the name?” Elijah was growing impatient.

She sucked in a breath, like she wasn’t sure what to expect after her next words, “It’s your brother Klaus. It says he’s the father.”


	9. Chapter 9

Elijah had gone straight into terrifying Original vampire mode, and stared down Jane Anne with contempt.

“If this is some kind of trick, trust me, it is not amusing in the slightest.” He said darkly. Jane Anne took several steps back.

“This isn’t my doing, I swear. I did everything right. I can try again.” She said quickly, “If I were going to lie to you, I wouldn’t do it while a little girl is trying to find out who her parents are.”

Sophie came flying through the door in her sister’s defense. She must have been listening in. “My sister one of the best witches in our coven. She did the spell. I’m sure she did it flawlessly. You got what you were looking for, and now you need to leave.”

I honestly barely processed the whole interaction.

It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. Klaus Mikaelson was a vampire, and maybe I did tend to struggle to pay attention in class but I knew vampires definitely could not procreate.

Still though. I could run faster than the other werewolves. I could jump higher. I could heal faster. I could heal other people with my blood. I could turn at will, and apparently so could Klaus.

“You will tell no one of this.” Elijah said to Sophie and Jane Anne, “If either of you breathes a word of this to anyone…I’ll kill every last witch in your coven personally. Good day.”

He started out the door and turned back to me, “Well, come along, Hope. There’s much to discuss.”

We didn’t talk until we reached the car. I got the sense that this was not a discussion to be had out in the open.

Once we got inside and closed the doors, Elijah said to me, “I’m sure I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”

“MG has a book, detailing some of the most well-known vampires from history.” I said numbly, staring ahead. “There’s a chapter on Klaus. ‘The Great Evil’ is what it calls him.”

Elijah said nothing.

“My father is ‘The Great Evil’. What am I supposed to do with that?” I asked.

Elijah started the car. “Our home is not far. We can go there, you can rest, and then you can tell me what you want to do.”

“What I want to do?” I repeated. He’d made it pretty clear a few hours ago that he and his brother were calling the shots, even if I cooperated with them.

“Yes. I believe circumstances have changed significantly.”

The building that Elijah called home took up an entire block. It was an enormous manor with its own private courtyard, with several people milling about already. I they all sported daylight rings. All vampires.

“This is what some of us affectionately refer to as the compound.” Elijah explained. “This is where my brother and sister and I live.”

“Your sister?” I think I remembered reading about her.

“Rebekah. She’ll be back from her vacation relatively soon, but I feel it’s best we let you get comfortable before we do a lot of introductions.”

“I should contact my friends.” I said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get their advice.

“Of course. Come, there should be a quiet room you can set up in for your spell.”

“Please don’t tell him yet. Promise me?”

“Of course.” Elijah replied, much to my relief.

Elijah’s demeanor had changed to a more welcoming one over the course of our short time together, but now I could tell he was definitely anxious. I suspected he had even less of an idea than I did about what we should do about this.

* * *

 

Penelope and Josie were supposed to be in class, but Penelope had really worked the “we’re too worried about our friend to possibly focus” angle so they’d managed a free day. They were genuinely worried, of course. But they did take the opportunity of the empty room to make out, because everyone processes difficult situations differently. Or _something_ like that, according to Penelope when Josie stopped them twice to stress out about how wrong it was to make out when their friend might be in danger.

 It turned out it was short-lived anyway, because Penelope was highly irritated and even kissing the great love of her life (she may be thirteen but she felt pretty certain about this) couldn’t distract her from how angry she was with Hope. So eventually things evolved into Penelope wanting to set fire to everything on Hope’s side of the room while Josie tried her best to calm her.

That’s when Hope appeared in the room, causing them both to jump.

“Oh, and just where the hell have you been?” Penelope demanded, instead of expressing any excitement at seeing her friend. Penelope was always at her angriest when she was worried.

“Hello to you too.” Hope said nervously, “Where’s MG and Lizzie? I need them in here.”

“Well maybe we don’t feel like being your messengers.” Penelope crossed her arms defiantly.

“I’ll go get them.” Josie hopped off the bed and left the room while Penelope stared daggers at her.

“Traitor.” She muttered. “I’m furious with you, by the way. I thought you were going to turn up _dead.”_

Hope tried for a playful smile, “Come on, you know it’s gotta take a lot to kill me.”

Penelope didn’t budge. Josie returned moments later with Lizzie and MG, who both looked relieved to see their friend alive and unharmed.

“So what’s with the family meeting?” MG joked.

Hope took a breath, and composed herself. “I found out who my parents are.”

* * *

 

My friends’ faces were pretty much exactly what I’d been expecting. Total shock, mixed with excitement. I wasn’t sure if they should be excited. I certainly didn’t know if I was. Hopefully at least my mother was normal and not-evil.

“Well, who are they?” MG asked.

“Yeah, that’s the hard part. I mean, my mom is someone named Hayley Marshall? I planned on trying to do a locator spell for her today. But my dad…” I hesitated. What would they think of me when they knew the truth?

“Tell us, Hope.” Penelope urged.

“My dad is Klaus Mikaelson.” I whispered. My friends were silent now. Finally, MG spoke up.

“Well um, sorry I called your dad evil and stuff.” He said, attempting to lighten the mood. It helped a little bit. I offered a small smile in return.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s well-deserved.” I admitted.

“So now what?” Penelope asked.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know yet. And you guys can’t tell anyone!” I needed to confront him myself, and deal with whatever happened next on my own. “I’m in New Orleans, at their…compound. With his brother, Elijah.”

“I question your life choices when you don’t have us around.” Penelope said irritably.

I couldn’t blame her. “I know, just…just trust me okay? I need to go. This is seriously draining my power.”

I blinked and I was back in the room Elijah had provided for me. I need to rest a bit, and let my magic build back up so I could try and do a locator spell for my mother.

Elijah was waiting right outside the door, as promised, and showed me to a bedroom in the guest wing where I could try and take a nap. He assured me that no one would bother me, and if they did, I was to let him know so he could “deal with them” which I believed was definitely code for killing them.

* * *

 

Alaric had tried everything in his power, but he could not shake Hayley Marshall. He especially couldn’t get rid of her when Caroline called to angrily tell him Elijah might know where Hope was all along.

“We have to do something.” Hayley was adamant. “Or I’m just going to have to go find her myself.”

“Fine. Go.” Alaric said to her. But she wouldn’t because she had no idea where to look. She huffed irritably.

There was a knock at the door and Alaric snapped, “What?”

The door slowly creaked open and Penelope and MG both peered in reluctantly.

“If it’s a bad time, we can come back.” MG said.

“We shouldn’t be here at all.” Penelope said to MG angrily, “She told us.”

“She told us not tell anyone about _one thing_. Not the other stuff. Dr. Saltzman should know.”

“Dr. Saltzman should know what?” Alaric asked impatiently. He’d already lost his patience with these two in particular several days ago when they had the bright idea to run away from campus. It certainly didn’t make it easier that he knew one of them had gotten extremely close to one of his daughters.

“Hope’s in New Orleans. With Elijah Mikaelson.” MG blurted out, while Penelope shook her head in defeat.

“I hate you.” She said to him.

Hayley looked at the kids, and then back at Alaric. “Well, I believe that’s all I needed to know. Thank you, Dr. Saltzman.” She said, and briskly walked out of the office. Alaric watched her leave, knowing there wasn’t really anything he could to do stop her. He’d just have to call Caroline and let her know, and perhaps warn her that they may have company very soon.

Meanwhile, Hayley Marshall was headed for the nearest airport.

* * *

 

 Elijah Mikaelson finally turned his phone on. After a minute or so, it began to buzz incessantly with missed calls and messages. He knew they were all from Klaus, of course. He had also surmised from the colorful voicemails Klaus had left him that he was aware of Elijah’s newfound alliance with Hope.

He wouldn’t tell him about what they’d learned. Not just yet. But he did need to bite the bullet and inform Klaus of where he, and Hope, were currently located.

“Hello, brother, are you calling to chat or beg for your life?” Klaus asked politely when he answered.

“I’m actually calling to inform you that young Hope and I are anxiously awaiting your arrival here in New Orleans.” Elijah said with a smile, “when can you make it?”

“Lucky for you, we should be there quite soon. And I really do have to ask, if you were merely retrieving the girl for my benefit, why all the secrecy?” He tried really hard to sound polite as ever, which is hard to do when you’re speaking through gritted teeth.

“We had business to attend to. Text me your ETA.”

He hung up, and ignored Klaus’s attempts to call him back.

* * *

 

A soft knock on the door stirred me from my sleep. For a moment, I forgot where I was. I heard Elijah outside the door. “Miss Baker?”

That surname was no longer mine. But I couldn’t imagine calling myself a Mikaelson right now. I sat up in the bed and ran a hand through my hair, hoping I looked moderately presentable.

“Come in.” I called back.

He opened the door and took a step inside. “My brother will be arriving within the hour. Along with your headmistress, Miss Forbes.”

“Is there somewhere I can like…shower? And change.” I asked. If I was going to be telling my father that he was…my father, I wanted to look halfway decent. Like someone he might actually want to call his daughter.

I gathered up some clothes to change into, and we walked down the hall where Elijah showed me a rather spacious bathroom complete with its own Jacuzzi, and a walk in shower that was nearly as big as the entire bathroom that connected to my dorm room back at school.

“It’s only the guest bathroom,” he said with a slight frown, “But I hope it’s suitable.”

Suitable was definitely a word for it. “Um, yeah, this should be fine.” I said awkwardly.

He told me he would be just down the hall, and left to give me time to get ready. The guest wing was basically its own separate apartment, complete with its own living room where Elijah—my _uncle—_ would be waiting for me.

I probably took a lot longer than necessary. I knew Klaus would be here soon, and the waiting around was starting to set me on edge. I needed to be calm. The last thing I needed was to lose control of my emotions at a time like this.

I took my time drying off and getting dressed, and then spent even more time blow-drying my hair. Even though I hardly ever took the time to do so and usually just allowed it to air dry. I was stalling now. I knew this.

When I opened the door, I heard hushed voices down the hall. I recognized Miss Forbes’ voice. And then I realized I heard Klaus’s voice too, speaking in his normal accent and not a false one he’d adopted when at the school.

They must have heard me open the door, because they instantly fell silent. That really didn’t do much to calm my fears, but I walked down the hallway until I reached the living room. Everyone looked at me. That didn’t really help either.

“Um.” I shifted nervously.

“Oh, here, let me assist you.” Klaus started, before I could get anything else out, “Why don’t you tell us what the bloody hell you were thinking? Leading us on a wild goose chase across half of southeastern America?!”

“Niklaus.” Elijah said calmly. Klaus ignored him.

“You could have acted the least bit grateful when I traveled all the way to that blasted town to try to help you, out of the kindness of my heart-.”

“The kindness of your heart?” I repeated, angrily. I suddenly forgot everything I’d learned that day. How dare he try and berate me when we both knew his primary interest was in acquiring me as a weapon. “I’m not an idiot. I know you know I’m powerful.” There were a few candles spaced around the room. I waved a hand, lightening them all in an instant. And then I sharply brought up both hands, letting the flames shoot up. “And that would benefit you, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, trust me, I make a better ally than enemy.” He said angrily.

“ _Niklaus_.” Elijah said again, much more sharply. “That is enough.”

I shook with rage, and I hated to admit it but heartbreak ran underneath. How could I tell him anything when he flew off the handle so easily? We’d been in one room together for all of two minutes.

I guess now my anger issues made a lot more sense.

“This was a mistake.” I said, realizing I had tears streaming down my face now. I turned and ran back to the guest bedroom, sending a gust of wind to slam the door as I threw myself on my bed.

* * *

 

“Do you have no tact whatsoever, Klaus?” Caroline snapped at him.

“She’s behaving like a child.”

“She _is_ a child. And you are a grown man.” Elijah groaned. He hadn’t told Klaus the truth about Hope yet. He’d promised he wouldn’t. But now he really wanted to, if only to see if his brother might show the slightest bit of remorse for his actions.

It was remarkable though, that Klaus didn’t see it already. He’d basically just had a shouting match with a younger, female version of himself. And that cold stare she had clearly mastered in her short years was all Klaus. If he’d doubted Jane Anne before, he certainly didn’t now, after seeing the two of them in the room together. The similarities were striking.

“You’re just upset because for once, you might have met your match.” Caroline smirked at Klaus, “She’s as headstrong as you are, Klaus.”

That she was. Elijah wanted to go and check on her, but he needed Klaus to be the one to do that. He just had to get Klaus to realize that, without telling him the truth.

“Niklaus, perhaps a more empathetic approach would be better in this instance.” Elijah suggested. “She’s not one of your vampires, or one of the witches in the Quarter. She’s a fourteen year old girl, and she’s scared. Namely, she’s scared of _you_ , and for good reason. She’s aware of the stories that surround our family.”

“Well, she’s right to be scared, because I won’t tolerate this behavior-”

“Do you want the girl to trust you or not?” Elijah asked, quickly losing patience for his frankly-quite-stupid brother. When Klaus didn’t respond, he rephrased the question, “Do you want the girl’s _loyalty_ or not, Nik?”

Of course that got his attention. He nodded, considering Elijah’s words. “Fine. I’ll go…make amends.”

* * *

 

I heard a tap at my door. I kept my face buried in the pillow. “What?” I muttered.

The door creaked open. “I’d like a word, if you can refrain from hexing me for a moment.” Klaus’s voice said from the doorway.

I looked up suspiciously. “I need to save my energy anyway.” I still needed to do that locator spell for my mother.

I sat up warily, and looked at the man who was supposed to be my father. It had already occurred to me that he had probably never known of my existence. The note my mother had left me all those years ago made a lot more sense now. I still had it, it was tucked away in my backpack currently. Worn from years of unfolding and refolding. I tried not to handle it quite as much anymore. I’d been overzealous about it as a child.

Despite everything, I so desperately wanted to tell him. But I was afraid because for one, I didn’t think he’d believe me in the slightest, and two, even if he did believe me…what if he didn’t care? He didn’t seem like the sentimental type. And yet another reason, I was afraid he’d be angry that my mother had kept it from him.

I guess I would just have to see how this conversation went. As long as we could get through it without losing our tempers.

There was a large trunk at the foot of the bed, and he sat down on it and drew in a breath, and then exhaled slowly.

“Contrary to what you might believe, I would like to help you.” He said to me. He didn’t look at me.

“Why?” It came out a bit more bitter than I intended. I reminded myself to dial it back.

“Because I know what it’s like to feel like you’re the only one of your kind.” He said solemnly. And then he said, “and I may have been secretly rooting for you for a while now. Since that day I met you after your first year at Salvatore.”

“Why?”

“You’re a fighter. I have a soft spot for fighters." he said with a small smile. "Always have."

“It gets me into trouble.” I admitted.

“Oh, I’d say it’s probably worth it.” He mused. And then he finally met my eyes, “Why did you and your friends run off?”

I decided to be honest. “MG found out Miss Forbes called you. He’d heard of you before, and panicked. He told me my life was in danger if you were coming to get me.” I hesitated, not sure if I should be saying these things to the man who would soon find out who I was to him, “I’m still trying to decide if he was right.”

“No harm will come to you here.” He said after a moment.

“Do I have to stay here?” I asked. Not that living in this enormous house would be a huge burden. But I did enjoy school . It was the only true home I’d ever known.

“I’ve spoken with Caroline and Alaric extensively. They’ve agreed that—for now—it’s best that you stay here at the compound so we can figure out what triggers you to wolf out, and make sure we have that under control. You will return to school in September, provided you’re in control of your transformations.”

That was fair. I could live with that.

I made my decision.

I jumped up and grabbed my backpack from the floor and unzipped it. I reached into one of the inner pockets and pulled out the old, crinkled envelope I’d saved for years and years. Shaking like a leaf, I held it out to Klaus. He took it curiously.

“My mother left me that when she gave me up for adoption. I never understood what she meant, until today. Today Elijah took me to meet a witch, and they did a spell to find out who my parents are.” I said as my pulse raced.

He opened up the letter, and read it silently. I went on, “Jane Anne told me my mother’s name is Hayley Marshall.” His eyes darted up to me, and he looked as though he was seeing me for the first time. I finally managed to get the next sentence out. “They said my father’s name is Klaus Mikaelson.”

We locked eyes, I realized just then that we have the same eyes, and I felt like an eternity went by as I held my breath for his response.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features Hayley kind of getting shitty treatment, which I felt super guilty about writing! But I swear things will look up.  
> This chapter also features me shamelessly shoehorning in a teeny tiny Klaroline scene, sorry not sorry.

The silence between us seemed unending.

 _Please believe me_. I silently begged.

“When is your birthday?” he asked. I told him, it was earlier this month. He stood up abruptly and went to find Elijah in the living room.

“I want Hayley Marshall found.” He demanded.

“Hayley?” Caroline looked up, “Alaric texted me. He said she was headed here. He said she claimed to be…”

She trailed off, and looked at me. My birth mother knew where I was? And who I was?

“How did she know where to find me?” I asked.

“I haven’t had a chance to get the full story.” Ms. Forbes said. “But she found out you were at the school, and had the unfortunate timing of showing up after you’d run away.”

This was turning out to be quite an overwhelming day.

“I want her located and brought here. But do _not_ tell anyone why she’s being searched for.” Klaus’s eyes flashed with anger, which he seemed to be trying very hard to keep under control, “She owes everyone an explanation right now.”

Elijah left to alert the vampires, and presumably to speak to the witches again about finding her. Klaus paced for a moment, and then looked at me before quickly looking away again.

“I’m…I’m going to go see to some business.” He said, still not looking at me directly. “You stay here, with Caroline. You do _not_ leave this section of the compound, understood?”

I’d had a dad for less than an hour and I was already somehow grounded. “What? Why?”

“Just stay put.” He said, and left the room. I felt a little bit at a loss. I sat down on the couch next to Ms. Forbes. I was a little crestfallen. I’d hoped for a little more time.

“I’m sure you heard.” I said to her. The living room and the guest room weren’t that far apart.

“I did.” She confirms. She gives me a gentle smile, and it makes me think of the first time we met. “How are you feeling?”

“Josie and Lizzie once told me you have a crush on him.” I said suddenly.

She flushes red, “Well, that’s hardly relevant.”

“It is, though. Because if it’s true, then why?” I ask. Because yes, he has done many horrible things. Yes, he has terrorized the earth for a millennium. But I’d heard Josie and Lizzie giggle about their mother’s infatuation with her friend “Nick”, the generous donor who popped in a couple of times a year and convinced her to go out to dinner with him, more times than I can count. I’d always held their mother in high regard. There had to be a reason she maintained a friendly relationship with this man, and why she continued to allow him to even enter the school.

“I’ve seen Klaus do a lot of things.” Caroline said in a measured tone, “Some of those things have been pretty awful, I won’t like. But he’s…he’s capable of a lot of good. I’ve seen it. He puts up an act but, I’ve seen him when he’s allowed himself to be good, and to love. I trust him. That’s why I called him when you transformed. I knew he’d be able to help, not just with that but…”

She paused, and really looked at me, “There were times, when you first came to the school, that you made me think of him. You were so angry back then. You were angry _a lot_. And you’d get this scowl and my mind would always go to him. Of course, I never dreamed that there would be a connection. But I thought about all those times, and I thought about how you and he had both been through so much pain. I don’t know. I just knew he would be able to help. I didn’t realize it would lead to this.”

“I don’t think anyone really expected this.” I agreed.

“And I’m really going to have a talk with the girls about what they run around telling their friends.” Ms. Forbes said sternly. And then she gasped, “Oh! They’re going to want to hear from you.”

“Already covered it.” I assured her, “I used a projection spell. I do wish I hadn’t left my phone behind though.”

“That can be remedied. I’ll send one of the day walkers for a new one.” Klaus said from the entryway. I kept my face neutral as I looked back at him. After all, he’d just walked out with hardly an explanation after I’d just done the most difficult thing in my life.

“Caroline, can I have a moment with Hope, please?” Klaus asked. “Actually, if you would exit the guest suite, head upstairs, and second room to the right, you’ll see the painting I was working on. I request honest feedback.”

“Well, you know I do enjoy sharing my opinions with you.” She smirked and walked out of the room.

“You paint?” I asked him.

“I do. I sketch a bit as well.” He sits down next to me.

“So do I.” I say quietly. I feel so nervous. What if I’m not at all what he wanted?

“I look forward to seeing your work.” He tells me, and it sounds sincere, and I suddenly wish I had my art from my dorm room to show him. I'll have to get it sent here. He clears his throat, “I spoke with Jane Anne. She said she’s thought about this quite a lot since she did the spell for you. She believes nature has created a…loophole, of sorts. A result of unlocking my werewolf side.”

“Didn’t you sacrifice a doppelganger or something for that?” I tried to recall the exact tale from MG’s notes. There were a lot.

He looks a little bit guilty, “Yes, she was a bit of a thorn in my side at that time. Lovely girl though, she’s a doctor now. Caroline is good friends with her.”

“She’s alive?” That didn’t make any sense. But then again, nothing made sense right now.

“You apparently didn’t study my history too closely.”

“Well, there’s a lot of it.” I admitted. So, so many accounts of bloodshed and horror.

He sighs heavily, and I know that he knew this conversation was coming. I’m sure he would have liked to avoid it, and I kind of wished we could. But there was no taking back the things I’d learned about him before learning he was my father. But then, maybe I wasn’t really ready to delve into that today either.

He opened his mouth to speak but I hurriedly cut him off, “I don’t care about that right now.”

“You don’t?” he asks, surprised.

“I mean, I do. But there’s time for that, right?” I asked hopefully. Because with any luck, he’s not going to get sick of me and send me away.

“Plenty of time.” He looks relieved to avoid trying to explain his past to his fourteen year old daughter for the time being.

Elijah re-enters the room and Klaus looks up expectantly. “Hayley has been located on a plane expected to arrive in the next twenty minutes. Marcel and a few of the day walkers will be there to meet her and, uhm, _escort_ her to the compound.”

“They aren’t going to hurt her, are they?” I asked. “I mean, she’s _my_ mother…”

They both looked as if this had only just occurred to them.

“I’ll instruct Marcel that she is to be unharmed.” Elijah said. He immediately took his phone out and walked out of the room.

“She gave you away and kept it from me.” Klaus said viciously. “And allowed you to be raised by those foolish humans. She shouldn’t even be allowed near y—I mean, she should at least be begging forgiveness.”

He didn’t say whose forgiveness she should be begging for, but I could guess he meant himself.

“She’s my mother. I need to see her.”

He agreed, albeit grudgingly. “I’m only saying, if you want to banish her from the city after today I can make it happen.”

I decided a subject change might be best. Klaus began asking questions about my adoptive parents, the Bakers, and I gave him the truth after making him promise not to hunt them down. As much as I hated it, they did have a son, and he was innocent. It was clear though, that he struggled to remain calm when he learned of their reaction to my abilities and the first night that I changed. I told him about Caroline though. And about how she had been like a savior to nine year old me. It had seemed like a fairytale a the time, being whisked away to a new world full of people who actually wanted me and made me feel like I belonged. I told him everything she and Alaric had done for me over the years. This appeared to quell his rage.

Caroline returned a little while later, smiling.

“Did you snoop through the entire studio?” he asked her.

“I might have.” She admitted shamelessly. “Klaus, you’re painting a picture of the school.”

“A gift.” He replied, “I just wanted to make sure it was worthy so far.”

The twins were right. They were incredibly obvious.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You have your own art studio?” I asked with interest.

“You’re welcome to go have a look. I keep most of my paintings that aren’t fit to hang anywhere else up there. Take the stairs outside the entrance to the suite. Second door on the right.” He said, and then with a touch of uncertainty he added, “straight there and straight back, please, Hope.”

I eagerly headed upstairs.

* * *

 

“She’s fourteen, not four.” Caroline said with a smirk.

“I’m a little newer at this than you are, love.” Klaus said defensively, “I only just got her.”

Caroline laughed, hardly able to believe the man standing before her was now someone’s father. Even more alarming, the usually confident—bordering on arrogant some days—Klaus Mikaelson was _nervous._ She’d never seen him look quite so unsure of himself.

“The painting is apparently going to be the first of many gifts I intend to shower you with though.” Klaus said seriously.

“Oh, here we go again.” She groaned. He seemed to think that someday, after the right about of money was spent, he would somehow win her favor. It’s not that she didn’t entertain the idea, but he was a little busy being the merciless ruler of New Orleans (from what she heard through the grapevine) and she was busy trying to run a school of supernatural children. And neither of them were willing to give up those passions. Caroline had told him she was building a life for herself, and she meant it. It hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but it was hers all the same.

Klaus took her hands in his though, which always sent a jolt of electricity through her.

“No, listen.” He said, no longer flirtatious and trying to charm her. His expression was earnest. “Hope told me how much you’ve helped her. I can’t imagine what would have become of her if it hadn’t been for you and your school. There is nothing I can do to repay you for that, but I intend to try. You and Alaric were there for Hope when no one else would have been.”

Caroline’s eyes grew misty, “I was just doing my job, Klaus. Kids like Hope are the reason our school exists.”

“No, your job was to educate her in an environment safe for children like her. Your job wasn’t to open your home to her, provide for her financially when her own parents stopped, and treat her like one of your own children without a second thought. But you did, and I owe you so much for that. I suppose I must thank Alaric too.” He groaned, “Well, what gifts am I supposed to shower Alaric with?”

“Oh, you didn’t pick up on any of his interests that time you _possessed him_?” Caroline raised an eyebrow.

“I remember bad fashion sense, crossbows, and bourbon.” Klaus said thoughtfully, “The man did have good taste in bourbon.”

“He hasn’t changed much.” Caroline admitted. She looked down and realized her hands were still clasped in his, and she hurriedly withdrew them, while he grinned triumphantly.

* * *

 

I could spend a whole day in here. Readily available supplies and things aside, I could sit here and look at my father’s work forever. He’d deemed the paintings that filled these walls “unfit” but I disagreed. Maybe I was just excited to see his work, and therefore get a better impression of who he was as a person.

If some of his paintings were any indication, he was a rather angry person. But I knew that already.

Judging by several others though, he was also a very lonely person.

I nearly regretted the fact that I’d learned of the atrocities he’d committed before learning he was my father. It would have been nice to start from a clean slate and be blissfully unaware of those things. At least for some small amount of time.

And then I kind of resented my mother for taking that opportunity from me. I hated that I felt that way.

I vowed not to let those feelings ruin my reunion with her. She was probably being intercepted and forcibly brought to the compound at this very moment, having no idea what was going to happen. So I really did want to be a friendly face.

I stayed in that room for a while longer, and then I was interrupted by Elijah at the door.

“Your mother has arrived.” He said.

“You mean she’s been dragged in by a bunch of vampires?” I asked, turning towards him.

“More or less.” He admitted ruefully. “She is unscathed though. Come, she’s waiting in Klaus’s study on the main floor.”

I followed Elijah through the large estate, and started to wonder how I might find my way back to the studio. The place was a maze.

We came to a door, where Klaus and Ms. Forbes were waiting outside, supposedly for me.

“We were trying to decide the best course of action.” Caroline explained. She shot a look at Klaus, “We’ve already decided that perhaps a certain someone shouldn’t be the first person she talks to.”

Klaus glared back at her, but did not disagree with the assessment.

Caroline continued, “So, Hope, I’m going to wait out here and hold off the beast, and Elijah is going to accompany you in there with Hayley. If you want someone there with you.”

I nodded. I kind of did.

This seemed as good a plan as any. Elijah opened the door for me and I took a deep breath and walked into the room. My mother, Hayley was sitting in one of the chairs that were situated around a coffee table in the center of the room. She bounced a leg anxiously, and looked up at us when she heard the door open.

I recognized her. The woman from the cemetery. No way.

She stood abruptly. “Hope. I know you have questions…”

“Did you know?” I demanded of her immediately. “That night you saw me, did you know?”

“It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t even know you were at that school.” She explained quickly, “I was just visiting a friend’s grave, and I heard your friend say your name and I…I couldn’t believe it.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked. She could have told me right then.

“I wasn’t sure I had a right to. I was going to confront your adoptive parents first but...that ended up being a waste of time. And then I went back later and you were gone.”

I calmed down. I realized I was still rather angry though. I didn’t want to be. I was willing to give Klaus a fair chance, so I should do the same for her. But he hadn’t even known I existed. She had. And she’d just admitted she knew who the family was. She could have checked up on me whenever she wanted and she didn’t.

 _She’s my mother. I’ve always wanted to meet my mother._ I told myself.

“Why didn’t you want me?” I had meant to say it with a little more anger. The words came out barely above a whisper. She shifted her gaze to my feet.

“I did want you. It’s just…there were a lot of factors that led to my decision, you have to understand. I was twenty and scared. I was having a baby that technically shouldn’t even have been possible. Not to mention the father was…Klaus, of all people.” She says the name with revulsion.

I’m angry. I don’t want to be, but I am. I should stop now before I say something I regret, but everyone knows I’m not very good at that kind of thing.

“At least Klaus wants me in his life.” I say the words before I can stop them, and then I can’t stop the words that follow, “Maybe my crappy childhood could have been avoided if you’d just dropped me on him when you decided you wanted nothing to do with me.”

"Hope, that's a little unfair." Elijah gently tries to reason with me.

“You don’t understand-” she tries again but her words are cut short by surprise, because the fireplace in the room suddenly roars to life.

I need to leave now, before anything else bad happens. I turn on my heel and storm out. Elijah offers a quick apology to Hayley and goes after me. I fly past Klaus and Caroline in the hallway.

“Have anything that needs destroying?” I ask Elijah, who’s still trailing me. He doesn’t answer right away, and I say impatiently, “Quickly, please? There’s only so long I can hold off.”

He leads me to a large sitting room and points to a dated-looking lavender armchair. “I’ve always hated it. Rebekah stole it from some noble family in the late 1800s because they annoyed her. It’s an eyesore.”

I threw my hands out toward it, and the fabric and stuffing exploded into the air, along with the wood splintering into a thousand pieces, exploding outward in all directions. Being more mindful these days, I flicked my hand towards the shrapnel headed for Elijah and myself, sending it in the opposite direction.

“I’ll clean it up.” I told Elijah. “I know vampires aren’t particularly fond of splinters.”

It’d be a miracle if any of my family still wanted me around after witnessing my actions today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would anyone be mad if I bring Kol back and just half-ass an explanation for his being alive?  
> I was thinking of just changing up the Vampires Diaries story-line and pretending he only got daggered instead of killed with the white oak stake to prevent him screwing around with Silas and the cure and Jeremy got his hunters mark some other stupid way.  
> Let me know.


	11. Chapter 11

While Elijah was seizing an opportune moment to clear out some of his least favorite furniture, Klaus was ready for all-out war with Hayley Marshall. Klaus burst into the study, while Caroline frantically followed behind.

“I believe your presence is no longer required.” He said to Hayley, “Feel free to show yourself out.”

“Klaus, no!” Caroline said firmly, stepping between the two. “She’s staying.”

“Hope has made her feelings on the matter quite clear.” Klaus snapped. “She’s not interested. Frankly, I grow fonder of that child by the minute. She has good judgement.”

“Hope’s fourteen and she’s confused right now, Klaus. You’re not kicking the mother of your child out. Hope has had a hard week. She just needs time.”

“Hayley owes me an explanation as to why my child was forced to suffer with unfit parents the first nine years of her life.” Klaus said angrily. He’d had enough time to stew on it. He could not quite believe he was this passionately angry on the behalf of a child he’d only just found out was his. But he wanted to tear apart anyone who had even slightly caused her suffering.

“I didn’t know they would turn out like that. I was beyond furious. I still am.” Hayley said in an exasperated voice, “I researched adoptive couples for weeks on end.”

“And you still chose wrong. So what makes you think you’d suddenly excel at motherhood?”

Hayley laughed harshly, “But you’re so much better? Really? You’re the last person who needs to be raising a child.”

“You had no right to abandon _my_ child, without even consulting me.” Klaus spat.

“You have no right to use her to make your stupid hybrid army.” Hayley fired back, and then realized what she’d said.

“What?” Klaus asked, momentarily thrown off guard.

Hayley decided to bite the bullet and tell him. “I saw a witch, while I was pregnant. I couldn’t believe this was real. She said she believed the baby could be the key to making more of your hybrids. She wanted me to abort.” Hayley said in a low voice, “I couldn’t do that. But I wasn’t about to risk _you_ finding out about her and exploiting her for your own gain.”

Klaus shook with rage. Perhaps the only thing holding him back was the fact that she was still Hope’s mother. And Caroline was still present.

Caroline threw him one last pleading look, and he caved. Only slightly. “How dare you stand in my home and make these baseless accusations about my intentions for my own child.” He said coldly. But he knew he couldn’t simply banish her. Not until Hope had a say. “You may stay here until Hope decides otherwise.” He strode out of the room. Caroline looked at Hayley sympathetically.

“I’ll talk to him.” She told Hayley, “I’m not leaving New Orleans until this is settled.”

She surprised herself when she said it. She’d turned down countless offers to come stay in New Orleans in the past years. Now she genuinely had a reason why she couldn’t walk away. And she knew Hayley was in a delicate situation, because Klaus had made it extremely clear that he believed Hope was _his_ , and his alone. Her fear at first was that a man like Klaus wouldn’t be able to open his heart to a child. This was misguided.

Klaus had always sought acceptance from his family, and now he had the possibility of the unconditional love of his child. He’d never pass that up. So no, Hope would be just fine. Caroline was now far more concerned for anyone Klaus may perceive as a threat. Hayley was definitely on that list.

* * *

 

I watched the armoire that Elijah called “atrocious” burn to ash out in the courtyard. I’d made short work of five or six unwanted items from the house by now, letting all the anger work itself out. I was really beginning to like my new uncle.

“What the bloody hell is all this?” came a female voice from across the courtyard. Elijah and I both looked up, and a blonde woman was walking towards us somewhat urgently.

“Oh dear.” Elijah muttered, “She’s back.”

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“We may have forgotten to update Rebekah on current events.” He said hesitantly, “There was a lot going on.”

“Forgot to update Rebekah about what, exactly?” she said as she neared. “Why are we burning the furniture now? Who’s this?” she gestured to me.

“Rebekah, come, let’s have a seat.” Elijah said warmly. She regarded him with suspicion. “Trust me, you’ll want to sit.”

Elijah introduced us, and then gave a brief rundown of everything that had happened that week, leading up that day, where I found out who my parents were. Her eyes grew wide as she realized what he was telling her. She looked at me in disbelief, and then scowled at Elijah.

“Is it so hard to pick up a phone and call your sister?” She says with an annoyed look, “And tell her, I don’t know, that she’s an aunt?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the week we’ve had.”

“Was anyone going to wake Kol and tell him?” Rebekah glared at Elijah expectantly, “Or is Nik still cross with him over that whole business with the cure over a decade ago?”

I vaguely recalled the name from my reading. “That’s your other brother, right?” I asked. “What do you mean ‘wake’ him?”

“Oh, when your father gets annoyed with us, he-”

Klaus suddenly appeared, smiling. “Oh good, you’re meeting the family.” His gaze shifts to Rebekah and it feels as though there’s a silent warning in his stare, “Rebekah, you look well.”

She smiled sweetly back at him, “Thanks, and you look like someone who has a lot of explaining to do.”

He focused his attention back on me, “Are you…alright?” he asked awkwardly.

“Elijah’s letting me burn things.” I said. “I feel better now.”

He looked at the pile of charred furniture and actually kind of looked proud. And I had to admit, it was nice to have someone look at some act of destruction I had done and not immediately look concerned or frightened or disappointed.

“Wonderful.” He did a double take at the pile of furniture, ‘is that the armoire from my room?”

“You’ve irritated me this week.” Elijah replied.

“Did you at least empty it first?”

Elijah looked at the armoire as though trying to recall. “It must have slipped my mind.”

Apparently though, destroying each other’s property was treated as little more than a mild nuisance by the Mikaelson siblings. Klaus asked me to follow him back inside, and led me to a different part of the home, on the opposite side of the courtyard. Upstairs, he showed me to a room that a bed was currently being assembled in.

“My family and I stay in this wing, so this will be your room when it’s finished. They’re still working on furnishings, but everything should be ready by the end of the day. Let me know if you have any specific requests and I’ll see to it.”

He hadn’t even had me for a full day and he was already getting all of this set up. He didn’t even know if he would get along with me or not, though. What if he decided he hated me, or I was too much trouble?

“Your things will be brought from the guest room. That space will be occupied by Miss Marshall for the time being, anyway.” He said tensely.

“Oh. She’s staying?” I couldn’t decide how I felt about this. Part of me was a little bit glad I hadn’t totally screwed things up and caused her to leave. Even if I had otherwise convinced myself that I didn’t need her if she didn’t need me.

“Your headmistress insists you give her a fair chance.” He grates out. He changes the subject, “But for now, I’m going to give you a proper tour of your new home and tomorrow I’ll take you on a tour of our city.” _Our_ city. Because it belonged to the Mikaelsons. I’m a Mikaelson.

“You don’t…you don’t have to do all this.” I say, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. “I mean, you’re not like _obligated_ or anything.”

“I missed out on giving you the life you deserve for fourteen years. I’m not missing another second. You’re a Mikaelson. This is place is your home, your _birthright_ , as far as I’m concerned.

I could feel tears threatening to fall from my eyes and I blinked several times, looking away. It was hard to believe my life could change so much in a matter of a day.

There was still that little voice in my head, reminding me of words burned into my mind from the textbook. _The Great Evil._ But I was also only a fourteen year old girl who had just discovered she had a father who actually cared for her, and a new home. Was it so wrong to just enjoy this fairy tale? Selfishly, I pushed aside that pesky reminder that the hero of my story was the villain in so many others.

 

By the end of the day, my new room was ready and my familiar duffel bag had been unpacked and put away. Much to my displeasure, I found out that Dr. Saltzman would be emailing my assignments to me, and mailing my textbooks and other class materials, so I could stay caught up since I would not be returning to campus for the remainder of the school year. I guess it was good that I wouldn’t fall behind. But I’d enjoyed the reprieve from studying.  I’d not yet spoken to my mother. She was getting settled in one of the guest bedrooms in the wing clear on the other end of the compound, and Miss Forbes had taken up a room near hers.

I suspected Miss Forbes knew what she was doing when she told Klaus she would be staying as long as he allowed Hayley to remain in the house as well. Of course he’d agree to it. She was staying to mediate and share all of her advice on co-parenting successfully, of course, but I think he had other plans.

I know I should talk to Hayley. I really do still want to. But I don’t know if I’ll end up doing or saying something I’ll regret.

It was later in the evening, after dinner, and I was lying on my bed setting up a phone that one of the day walkers had obtained for me. Day walkers were vampires with daylight rings, and also part of the “inner circle” but even they were not trusted with all information. They still did not know exactly who I was or what I had to do with the Mikaelson family. But they’d been told if they so much as harmed a hair on my head the punishment would be particularly gruesome.

There was a tap at the door and I sat up. “Come in.” I called, somewhat reluctantly and annoyed. Night walkers, vampires without daylight rings who were desperately trying to earn one, had stopped by incessantly to see if I needed anything. Again, they did not even know who I was, but they’d heard from others that I was _important_. Therefore, I am another opportunity to gain favor with Klaus.

Rebekah cracks the door open and peaks in. “Oh!” I say, surprised, and guilty for sounding so cranky. “Sorry, people keep barging in here. Please, come in.”

“I thought perhaps my brother had gone mad, you know. Thinking he’d managed to father a child.” She said, stepping into the room. She looks at me closely, and nods, “You have his eyes, but luckily for you, you’ve turned out prettier than he is.”

“Sorry they forgot to tell you about everything.”

She rolls her eyes, “If I had a nickel for every time those two left me out of something, I might actually pay for things when I go shopping.” She grins at me then, “Speaking of shopping, you and I are definitely going to be upgrading your wardrobe quite soon. I can only assume the retail situation is still just as dreadful as it was fifteen years ago.”

“Oh, you really don’t have to go to the trouble.” I say quickly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my niece. This is kind of my job, darling.” She grins conspiratorially, “Believe me, you’re going to like having a crazy auntie Bex.”

I couldn’t help agreeing.

“Well, I was just checking to see that you’re settled in okay. I’ve got to go see Marcel and let him apologize to me for our latest little spat. The whole bloody reason I’ve been on vacation for two weeks. Plus, you’ve got one more uncle to meet and I’m going on a mission to find the bastard and wake him up.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, recalling the conversation from earlier that Klaus had abruptly put an end to. But now, she seems less eager to share whatever she was going to say before.

“I’ll explain another time. It’s hardly relevant and you’ve been through a lot today.” She says briskly. I don’t like that there’s something she’s not telling me. Something pertaining to my dad.

“Rebekah? Am I safe here?” I hope she understands what I mean.

Her expression looks sincere as she speaks. She seems to get what I’m saying.  “Trust me. You’re the safest child in New Orleans, Hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't bring myself to send Caroline back home lol


	12. Chapter 12

A day passed before I spoke to Hayley again. Klaus gave me a tour of the city in the meantime, and introduced me a ton of people, whom I already struggled to keep track of. He’d decided it would be best to keep it under wraps that I was actually his daughter, because he’d made more than a few enemies over the past millennium and he didn’t want anyone to have any reason to attack me to get to him. The story, for now, was that I was a distant descendant of his biological father and in dire need of a place to stay. If anyone questioned that it was uncharacteristic of Klaus Mikaelson to allow such a thing, I was more than welcome to show them what I was capable of.

There were no follow-up questions, usually.

He told me that after a few days of getting settled in, we would go out to the bayou where I could try to practice transforming on my own. The goal was, if I could transform _without_ it being triggered by wanting to rip someone to shreds, I could control it successfully. Once I mastered that, I could even work on accessing my humanity to a better degree in wolf form.

I’d worried that perhaps I needed to be somewhere a bit more contained, so I didn’t hurt anyone. He scoffed at that, and assured me that I ought to be in nature, the way wolves were intended to be.

Finally, I could put it off no longer. I asked Miss Forbes, who told me that I may as well just call her Caroline for now, if she would go with me to speak to my mother again.

“I knew her, by the way, before she even got pregnant with you.” Caroline told me while we walked to the guest wing of the compound.

“How’d you meet?”

She hesitated, “She was…helping a friend out. It’s a long story.”

For some reason, it was always a long story when it comes to the people who know Klaus. It was always a long story that people weren’t quite sure they wanted to share. This was another thing I’d had to accept.

Hayley was sitting in the living area, drinking tea which she nearly dropped when we walked in.

“Hi.” She said in surprise.

I decided to sit down on the couch. I could do this. I needed to hear her side of things.

“I’m sorry about the way I acted.” I said, focusing on the floor, and trying to do the breathing exercises that Emma, the guidance counselor at school, had taught me to do. Sometimes it helped, though sometimes it just made it easier to direct my rage at a target.

“Hope, you have every right to be upset. I never intended for your life to turn out like this.” She says quietly, “I knew you would be special. But I thought as long as you didn’t activate your werewolf curse, you’d be fine.”

She wasn’t totally wrong. I would have been somewhere close to fine, if I hadn’t turned into a wolf in my childhood bedroom one day. That had kind of been the final straw for the Bakers, unfortunately.

They were just humans. They were in over their heads.

And…Hayley had been in over her head as well.

Maybe I’d been a tiny bit unfair.

“You couldn’t have known I’d be…whatever I am.”

“Tribrid.” Caroline piped up. We both looked at her. “Vampire, werewolf, and witch. We just didn’t know about the vampire blood for the longest time. That’s why you’re stronger than the other wolves, Hope. Even before you triggered the curse. It’s why you heal so fast and your blood heals others.”

Caroline went on to say, “From what we’ve been able to surmise, Hope, you’re the only _living_ person in the world with vampire blood constantly running through your veins. And werewolf blood. And your paternal grandmother was a powerful witch.”

“Oh.” Because what else do you say to that?

“And that’s why I want you to stay here.” Hayley said, surprising me, “While you were out with Klaus today, Caroline, Elijah, and I talked. I may have been wrong about Klaus. And I think you’re safer here, for right now, because if word gets out there will definitely be people who want to hurt you.”

It was a relief to know my parents would possibly no longer be at each other’s throats anymore. At least not so often. I felt a bit better about her knowing I didn’t need to defend my father around her.

So Caroline left and we started talking. I told her about my life, about triggering the werewolf curse, about going to a new school and finding a home and friends there. She told me about her life too, which had been pretty rough as well. She’d been abandoned by her adoptive family when she triggered her curse at thirteen.

“We’ve both had crappy luck with humans, unfortunately.” She said, “I guess I should have done a better job of preventing history from repeating.”

I shrugged, feeling my heart soften a bit. I’d missed out on fourteen years. Why make myself miss more just to hold a grudge? And I am quite the expert on holding grudge.

“What matters is that I found a home, actually really quickly, and that I found you and my dad.” I say, “I think things might be working out for me.”

* * *

 

A couple of hours after Hope finally goes to bed, Klaus shows up at Hayley’s door. She’s wary, of course. She said she’d try to get along with him and she meant it, she just assumed getting along with him wouldn’t involve seeing him very much. She certainly did not expect him to seek her out willingly.

She finds herself wishing he'd just sent Elijah to deliver whatever message he has for her. And then she wonders why on earth she's wishing for that. 

“The Bakers.” He says, “You have their address?”

Hayley nods cautiously. “I do.”

A grin spreads across his face, “Is it far from here?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “It’s like a seven hour drive at least.” She admits. Much too far. Way too far for him to do anything impulsive.

“We’ll fly then. Be ready in 20 minutes.” He turns to start to leave but Hayley frantically catches him in the hall. 

“Hope doesn’t want them hurt, Klaus.” She reminds him.

“I’m not going to hurt them, I’m merely going to remind them that they made a very grave mistake and I’m also going to make them a promise.” he says, feigning complete innocence. 

With that, he’s gone. Leaving Hayley no choice but to hurry up and change out of her pj’s. If only so she can try and prevent a murder tonight.

After Klaus dragged her onto a private plane and then a three hour flight to middle-of-nowhere Georgia, which luckily _had_ a small airport for their use, Klaus and Hayley were closing in on the Bakers’ home. It was like 2am by now, and she knew they would be asleep, and they would soon wake to terror. She herself was in a state of mild panic mixed with exhaustion. He’d repeatedly told her he wasn’t going to hurt them _tonight_. He kept saying tonight, or ‘any time soon’ and things like that.

They finally came to a house in their rental car, and Hayley sighed, “This is it.”

“That front door is a ghastly shade of yellow. Honestly, Hayley, did you even try?”

She rolled her eyes, “Home décor preferences weren’t really my top priority when I was picking a family. Now do you mind sharing the plan or are you planning on barging in there, guns blazing? Oh that’s right…you can’t even get in without being _invited.”_

 _“_ Watch and learn, love.”

He marched right up to the front door and rapped loudly on it. Hayley stood a few feet back, uncertainly. They’d seen her, once, but that had been years ago, when she was still pregnant. She’d given a fake name. She wanted to ensure there was no way anyone could connect that child to the world that she thought she was protecting her from.

Sleepily, a man opened the door and blinked in confusion at the two of them.

Klaus donned a genial southern accent, and smiled warmly, “I’m sorry to bother you, but our car has broken down. The wife and I can’t seem to get a signal out here. Would it be too much trouble to use a phone?”

Mr. Baker looked apprehensive for a moment. “It’s awfully late…”

Klaus locked eyes with him and dropped the act. “I really must insist that you invite me in, dear friend.”

“Please, come in.” The man said automatically.

“Well, you heard the man, Hayley.” Klaus stepped over the threshold and beckoned Hayley to come along. From there, he asked the man to go and wake his wife. The man was bewildered to find that his feet moved of their own accord to accomplish the task.

“What exactly are you planning?” Hayley hissed.

Before Klaus could answer, the man came back downstairs with his wife, who regarded them both in sleepy confusion as well. Finally, her eyes widened as she recognized Hayley. “It’s you…” she whispered.

“Never mind the little wolf.” Klaus said, causing Hayley’s blood to boil, “She can be rather mean, to be sure, but I’m the one you need to be concerned about.”

“What is this about?” the man demanded, “Who are you people?”

“Tell me, do you ever think about her?” Klaus asked them in a dangerous voice, “Do you ever wonder for a moment what became of her?”

“Honey…it’s her.” The woman nudges her husband and points at Hayley, “the birthmother.”

He stares for a moment, and then appears visibly flustered. He realizes what’s going on now. “Listen…we-we tried for as long as we could She turned into some kind of _beast_ in our home. We at least found a place for her to go! We didn’t just toss her out.”

“You still turned your backs on her though.” Hayley says suddenly, “You still abandoned her. And you have the nerve to assume _she’s_ the beast?”

“She was dangerous.”  The woman says in a small voice, but Hayley can tell she knows the excuse falls flat. “We were having another child, and we just couldn’t risk it.”

Klaus grinned wickedly, “Right. I almost forgot. He’s asleep upstairs, isn’t he?”

The two are horrified. Hayley herself is just a little bit horrified. Surely he’d never go that far. Before she can say anything he continues talking, “Now, now. Of course I’m not going to harm the child. Nor will I harm you. Yet.”

He then lets his vampire features show, and his golden wolf eyes shine as he steps towards them. The scramble backwards.

“What are you?” the man asks, eyes wide.

“An incredibly irritated father.” Klaus says, “Like I said, I won’t harm you tonight. But in a few years, that boy will grow up, become an adult, and no longer need his parents. I’ll feel a bit less conflicted about ripping you both to shreds when that day comes. Enjoy the wait.”

He lets his face shift back to normal and promptly turns to leave.

“Come along, Hayley, I think we’re done here.”

She kind of likes the look on their faces. Maybe Klaus’s methods are unconventional, but seeing them in fear is pretty satisfying.

“Bye.” She says with a mocking grin, and follows him out the door.

They get back in the car and drive in silence for a moment. It’s a stunned silence on Hayley’s part. “You really do care about her. A lot.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

Another silence falls over them and Hayley speaks again, “We’re not going to tell Hope about this, are we?”

“According to Caroline, she’s got a lot of school work to catch up on. I see no reason to burden her with these matters.”

Hayley nods. They’re both pretty sure that this definitely not what Caroline meant when she suggested they find some common ground and learn to get along. But admittedly, it did seem to be a step in the right direction for “peaceful co-parenting.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, since this is AU anyway, the Harvest ritual (and the Mikaelsons appearing in New Orleans) happened five years ago, instead of nearly 15 years ago. With Davina still being 16 when that happened, thus 21 in this version of things. 
> 
> I just felt like 15 years would be way too much time to pass in New Orleans with Klaus in charge and no issues whatsoever. Be real now.

_A couple of days have passed since Klaus and Hayley teamed up to scare the Bakers half to death._

_~_

“Absolutely not. Klaus clearly didn’t want anyone waking him up anyway. That's the whole point of hiding his coffin.”

Rebekah rolled her eyes, giving the witch an impatient look, “Since when do you care what my brother wants? You hate him.”

Davina Claire laughed in disbelief, “Since apparently we both agree that keeping your _other_ psychotic brother locked away in a coffin is best for everyone? Marcel told me the stories, Rebekah. I’d say New Orleans has met its quota on Original vampires.”

Rebekah turned to glare at Marcel now. “What did you tell her?”

He puts his hands up in surrender, “Rebekah, the guy terrified me when I was a kid. What do you expect? Besides, why can ‘t you just ask Klaus where he is?”

“I did. He seems to think Kol is not the shining example of the Mikaelson family that Hope needs to see right now.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” Davina muttered.

Rebekah narrowed her eyes. But she knew full well that Davina was off-limits. Marcel considered her family.

“Not that it matters, but I happen to think that meeting his niece and seeing our family getting along so well might be just the thing he needs. Plus, he was actually quite right about the Silas ordeal and we kind of owe him an apology.”

“And what are you going to do when he slaughters a whole hotel of people, or a nightclub, or a restaurant, and exposes us to the city within a week of waking up?" Marcel questioned.

Admittedly, Rebekah did not know what she was going to do if that happened, but she was determined not to let it come to that. “It’s one teensy weensy little locator spell. Come on.”

Davina looked at Marcel in confusion, who promptly looked down uncomfortably. “Locator spell? Marcel didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me _what_?”

“Um.” Marcel coughs nervously, “Well, you see, after the whole ordeal with the harvest ritual five years ago, and Klaus and I were still struggling to get along, he gave me Kol’s coffin as a sign of good faith. So I had Davina cloak it and stash it some place safe. Once everything was settled, Klaus decided to just leave him be.”

“Just when were you planning on telling me this? You knew where my brother was this whole bloody time?”

“We only started dating last year! I was working up to it.” Marcel said defensively. Rebekah picked up a book and chucked it at his head.

“Where’s my brother?” she demanded furiously.

Some time later, after an unbelievable amount of arguing, the three of them stood in the attic of St. Anne’s church.

“Once again, just so we’re clear.” Davina said, bringing up the deal they’d managed to hash out on the way over, “We can wake him up again, but only on the condition that he stays in this room. And then Marcel and I will keep an eye on him and release him when we think he’s fit to be allowed back into…the general population.”

“You’re both mad.” Rebekah muttered. “But fine, whatever. Just prepare for him to be pissed off when he finds out you expect to keep him in vampire rehab indefinitely.”

Davina reaches into her back and produces a bracelet and quickly explained, “You guys remember Cami? Before she got sick of getting dragged into all of this and left town, she entrusted me with a bunch of the dark objects her uncle had collected. I learned what most of them do, over time.” She held up the bracelet, “This will make sure he stays in the attic and doesn’t hurt anyone.”

She removes the cloaking charm from Kol’s casket and opens it up. Marcel and Rebekah watch as she then holds the bracelet over his desiccated body and began a chant. Once satisfied, she hooked the bracelet around her wrist.

“All done. You can have your little family reunion now.”

She moved aside and Rebekah pulled the dagger from Kol’s chest. After an eternity, he started to show signs of life and Rebekah went to his side, blood bag in hand. He clasped it greedily in his hands and downed the contents within seconds.

“Silas.” He rasped out, looking around wildly.

“Yeah, you’re a bit late.” Rebekah admitted. He took a moment to comprehend and groaned.

“Ugh. Bex. Do I even want to know how long it’s been this time?” he asked, “Judging from the fact that anyone is still alive at all, I’m assuming you either were smart enough not to wake him or that bunch in Mystic Falls somehow miraculously took him down.”

“The second one.”  She said brightly, “Turns out you were right. He was a bastard.  And it’s…it’s been a little over fifteen years.”

“That’s better than the last nap.” He looked over at Marcel and Davina, both of whom were still eyeing him apprehensively. “Marcellus? Are we in bloody New Orleans, Rebekah?”

“Oh there is a _lot_ to catch you up on, brother.” She said, and embraced him. Forgetting his annoyance with her and his brothers for keeping him daggered, he quickly hugged her back. At least it was nice to wake up to a friendly face. He’d always gotten along fairly well with his younger sister anyway.

“Can we get out of this dusty old attic to catch up, then?” Kol asked, looking around in disgust.

Davina held her arm up, showcasing the bracelet. “Actually no. You can’t. You’re going to stay here, in this attic, until I see fit for you to do otherwise. And you’re not to harm me, or Marcel. And you’re not to touch this bracelet.” She ordered.

He squinted and then flashed from the coffin to Davina and stared at the bracelet, his face quickly morphing from curiosity to rage. “What the…why the bloody hell have you got _my_ bracelet?”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, for gods sakes, they woke up Kol.” Klaus said irritably, looking down at his phone. “Heaven forbid Marcel learns to tell my dear sister ‘no’ once in a while.”

This was like, the third time I’d heard them mention my uncle Kol in the past few days. Yet they still refused to actually discuss him. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on with Kol?” I asked.

Klaus, Hayley, Caroline, Elijah, and I were all gathered in the dining room eating supper when Klaus got the text on his phone from Marcel. We’d actually been wondering where Rebekah and Marcel had gone off to all day, but according to Klaus and Elijah disappearing was normal behavior for the two of them. I liked Marcel quite well. He introduced me to Davina, who had already promised to help me learn some of the spells in my grandmother’s grimoires. It would be nice to have another witch around.

“Your uncle Kol is…particularly volatile at times. And impulsive.” Elijah said hesitantly.

Caroline snorted, and they all looked at her with interest. “Sorry but…you really think he’s the only Mikaelson sibling who fits that description?”

“He’s not exactly an anomaly in this family.” Hayley agreed.

“He tried to betray me in 1914.” Klaus grumbled, stabbing a piece of meat with his knife.

“To be fair, who hasn’t?” Elijah reasoned, and then he glanced around the table with an amused expression, “Hope’s the only person at this table alone who hasn’t plotted against you in some way. But there’s still plenty of time.”

“Can we get back to the subject.” I interjected.

Begrudgingly, Klaus explained that there were daggers that, when dipped in white oak ash, neutralized all of the siblings—except for him—and put them into a sleep until the dagger was removed. Kol was daggered for trying to interfere with their plans to wake an immortal named Silas, and obtain the cure for vampirism, which turned out to be not the greatest of ideas after all.

“Well, I want to meet him.” I said firmly, “He’s my family, after all.”

“I suppose we had to bring him up to speed sooner or later.” Klaus finally admitted, “Maybe his time in the coffin has wizened him.”

“Doubtful.” Elijah replied.

“You kept him in an _actual coffin?_ ” I asked, taken aback by that revelation.

“There’s one for each of us in storage.” Elijah answered for Klaus, ignoring his annoyed stare. “Well, we ought to go greet our brother.”

* * *

 

“It’s not _your_ bracelet.” Davina fired back at Kol. “It belongs to my friend. I’m just taking care of it and some of the other things she left me.”

“It most certainly does not. I created it myself. Or rather, I had it created. Those witches wouldn’t have known the first clue about making dark objects if it hadn’t been for me.” Davina’s a little surprised by this admission. Because what would a vampire be able to teach a witch about magic? She quickly recovers though.

“In that case, thank you for my new favorite accessory.” Davina replied with a sweet smile. Kol couldn’t lay a hand on her, under her command, but he glowered at her.

He turned to Rebekah. “You’re seriously going to leave me here with this little witch as my prison warden? Are you out of your damn mind?”

“Kol, can we forget about the bracelet and your other stupid toys for a moment?” Rebekah says impatiently, “We have bigger issues to discuss.”

“What could possibly be bigger than your willful lack of trust in me?”

“I came here to tell you about your niece.”

That shut him up. She grinned at the dumbfounded look on his face.

* * *

 

It was right after Rebekah apparently filled Kol in on everything he’d missed that Klaus, Elijah, and I entered the church attic. Davina, Marcel, and Rebekah were all there with a very angry-looking young man that I gathered must be Kol.

“Did you enjoy your nap, little brother?” Klaus asked with an innocent grin. Kol scowled at him. 

“You know what? I’ll stay in the attic.” Kol said to Davina, “At least you’re prettier to look at than he is.”

Davina shot him a warning look. “Don’t even _try_ to go there.”

Klaus looked from Kol to Davina. “I’m sure I’ll regret asking, but what’s this about?”

“In exchange for the location of my body, our lovely sister gave this witch total control of me because I’m ‘unpredictable.’” Kol spat, and then he looked at me for the first time, “Welcome to the family, by the way. You must be Klaus’s miracle tribrid baby. Rebekah brought me up to speed.”

“Well, I go by Hope, actually.” I said, not really wanting to be forever known as the 'miracle tribrid baby' by anyone. 

“Your uncle Kol suffers from middle child syndrome.” Elijah commented, "Don't let him bother you."

“Yes, that’s _exactly_ it.” Kol replied sarcastically, and then he finally looks a little bit worried, “You two aren’t really going to let them keep me here are you? This is ridiculous.”

Klaus does not look the slightest bit sympathetic to Kol’s predicament. Instead, he just looks amused. After seeming to have contemplated it, he actually appears to take pity on his younger brother.

He shrugs, “Oh fine. Davina, release our brother.”

She frowns and shakes her head. “No way.”

“Davina, he’s our responsibility.” Klaus says, and then a little less patiently adds, “Release him to us. Now.”

“We’ve put a lot of work into keeping the supernatural community in this city alive, and making a home here, without the humans knowing.” Marcel intercedes. “I’m with Davina on this one. We made a deal with Rebekah. We woke him up, and we’ll release him when we’re sure he’s not going to do something stupid to expose us all. How many times have you complained about him leading Mikael right to you in the past, Klaus? He’s not exactly discreet.”

And then Klaus tensed, and looked at Marcel and Davina with a hard stare. He then glanced back at me, and clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Fine. You have a month.” Klaus says in a measured tone, and there's clearly rage underneath threatening to boil over, “And then we’ll have him back, whether you’ve been successful or not.”

Then he turned and walked out the doorway and down the steps, and I watched as varying degrees of shock registered on the faces of everyone else in the room. I didn't have to know his reputation to understand that no one had expected him to back down so quickly.

“Well, if anyone needs me, I’ll be here with Marcellus and this power-tripping witch, I suppose.” Kol said in a bored voice. Rebekah rolled her eyes at him, muttered something about how ungrateful he is and walked out of the room, and Elijah and I followed behind. Klaus had already left the church by the time we got downstairs.

“He’s attempting to avoid making a scene, I think.” Elijah explained. I started to wonder if maybe the outcome would have been very different had I not been present. Which, of course, let me to the line of thinking that it was now my fault that my uncle was being somewhat held hostage.

“I could have helped.” I said. “Why didn’t he ask me?” I’d never wanted my power to be used as a _weapon_ , sure, but I did want to help my family. If there was one thing I’d learned about the Mikaelsons, they did anything for family.

“Because you’re a fourteen year old girl and your job isn’t to fight his battles, or any of our battles.” He said, as if reading my mind, “Besides, Kol will be fine. I daresay Marcel and Davina are getting more than they bargained for and will probably beg us to take him off their hands before the end of the month.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could honestly write a whole companion fic about the misadventures of Davina using the bracelet to keep Kol in line (and I might?? if I have time???) but I thought it would be an interesting way to introduce them to each other in this version of things.


	14. Chapter 14

Klaus did not particularly like the idea of bringing Hayley along to the bayou, but she insisted that this was her responsibility too. Not to mention, she did have some rather irritating past experience with helping others with their transformations.

She’d been quite successful, as much as Klaus hated to admit that. 

Plus, it might be better for Hope to have her mother there before and after transforming, for comfort. Comforting anyone at any time was not exactly something he was practiced at doing.

They were supposed to be going later that evening, and he sat on the balcony brooding about it. He also pondered what Hayley had said about the hybrids, and Hope being the possible key. He hadn’t brought it up since then. He knew what people would think of him if he did. But would it be so wrong to create a few more? Especially to protect his one and only child?

He would talk to her about it, and about the possibility of using her blood to run some…experiments. He would just need to do so away from Hayley’s presence.

Yet another thing he couldn’t help brooding over was the incident with Marcel and Davina regarding Kol the other day. Any other day, Klaus would have exhibited more force. He would have threatened Davina’s life, he would have threatened to rip Marcel’s heart out for messing with his family. Sure, he did consider Marcel family, but he had no right allowing Davina to go as far as she had. He tended to push his boundaries a lot with Klaus. Despite the fact they’d managed to get along for the past few years, there was always the hint of a power struggle between them.

He’d walked away. Because _she_ was in the room, and she had not yet witnessed firsthand the things he was capable of. He couldn’t risk hesitating for her sake again. He’d have to keep her away from the business side of things. He could not be seen as weak by others.

He felt a light gust of wind at his back and turned to see Caroline standing in the doorway. There was a bright spot in his day.

“What a welcome surprise. Come, sit down.” He gestured to the chair beside him. She smiled at him and he temporarily forgot about all of the reasons why he annoyed. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

“I wanted to do something for you.” She said, and placed a hand against the side of his head, “I did this for Hayley too, earlier today. I wanted to show you my memories of Hope growing up. I know it’s not a lot, but I know it must be hard missing so many years.”

He closed his eyes, and allowed Caroline’s memories to flood in. She’d been there for so much. The magnitude of that was never lost on him. It was a small comfort that this woman he loved had practically raised his child the past few years.

There were so many happy memories, which was a relief to him. The first time Caroline threw her a birthday party, completely taking her by surprise. The time in a fitness exam in PE that Hope had come out ahead of all the other wolves on the track. They’d looked at her with annoyance, but she hardly noticed as a boy and girl who’d waited at the finish line slapped high fives with her. Flashes of Hope laughing and talking at the dinner table in Caroline’s home. Christmas mornings where she was always included in the festivities with Caroline’s twins.

But there were heartbreaking memories too. A scene of Caroline rushing into the art room to find Hope standing before a quite-literally blazing canvas. Hope and a werewolf boy arguing in Caroline’s office until Hope stood up and punched him square in the jaw before sending him flying across the room with a wave of her hand, and then bursting into tears afterwards because she’d tried so hard that month to maintain control. Another memory depicted Hope shouting at a boy in the dining hall until the plates around her began to shatter. Yet another scene depicted a nearly destroyed art room after Caroline had informed her the for the third summer in a row, her adoptive parents had expressed no interest in coming to pick her up.

Caroline took her hand away. “It’s a wonder that school still stands.” Klaus said, breaking the silence.

“One of these days I’m going to crunch the numbers and figure out what percentage of your donations went to repairing the damage from your daughter’s outbursts.” Caroline laughed. “Not to mention, we were already using that money for scholarship funding. Hope was included in that, after her adoptive parents cut off contact all together. Ironic, isn’t it? You were funding your daughter’s education without ever knowing it.”

“The universe is funny that way.” Klaus shrugged. It was some small comfort though, that he’d been able to help even without realizing it.

Caroline looked like she had more to say though, and judging from her expression, it was difficult.

“What’s on your mind, love?”

She fought back a grin and sternly reminded him, “I’m not your ‘love’, Klaus.” But it was half-hearted, as if rebuffing his attempts was nothing more than an act these days. Perhaps it was just easier because it was familiar. Accepting his love, and admitting to herself that there was so much more between them, that was truly a scary prospect. She bit her lip briefly and then said, “It seems like you and Hayley have gotten along much better.”

“We have.” Klaus agreed, and felt the need to add, so that there could be no misunderstanding, “I believe she might be smitten with my brother though.”

“Oh?”

“They’re both terrible at hiding it.” Klaus said with a shrug of his shoulders, “But there are only so many excuses one can make up to seek out someone in a day. And _I_  can’t imagine why anyone who isn’t bound to him by blood would willingly have him around if there wasn’t a romantic interest. I’ve known the man long enough to know he’s not the friendly sort.”

“And you’re…okay with it?”

“Elijah not being the friendly sort? Or Elijah talking about the mother of my child as if she hung the moon herself and fawning over her incessantly? I suppose I’m fine with both. Hayley and I would murder each other within a week if we attempted a romantic relationship.”

Caroline seemed oddly put at ease by that statement. “Well, you know I only planned to stay until you and Hayley got things worked out, and Hope got settled…” she began, cautiously watching his face for a reaction. He simply looked back at her with interest. “So I really should get back soon. Final exams are coming up next month, and I know the girls miss me. And…”

“I understand, love.” He said, taking her hand, “You’ve done more than enough for me, and for my family.”

They lock eyes for a moment, and neither speaks. Without realizing it, they seem to have moved much closer. Caroline abruptly breaks the silence. “The twins want to come see Hope though, in the summer. And, well, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable sending them on their own.”

“You don’t trust the Mikaelson family with your children?” Klaus asked, feigning shock.

“I could be convinced to let them visit as long as I accompany them. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you, of course.”

She knows perfectly well that would never bother him in the slightest. 

* * *

 

I stood nervously outside the little shack, watching the lap at the shore. My parents, my real actual parents, were inside talking about how best to help me transform on my own. I still didn’t love the idea, but they assured me that if I could learn how to choose to transform then I wouldn’t accidentally wolf out when something made me mad enough.

Klaus walked outside, followed by Hayley. I still struggled to call them my mom and dad, even in my head. Like this didn’t feel real enough yet. A part of me still worried that any moment something could go horribly wrong. 

“You haven’t transformed outside of the full moon until now because you simply haven’t wanted to transform. Most people don’t. And it doesn’t help that you’ve never actually learned how to make transforming easier.” Klaus said, “Instead, your school treats it as a chore to get through once a month. That’s not their fault; they just don’t understand it well enough.”

 He was right. A lot of the kids at school didn’t really have an official pack their families belonged to. They usually only came to the school from families who knew little to nothing about what being a werewolf was.

“You’ve got to actually want to turn. And honestly, the more you do it, the easier it gets. There’s a point where it just stops hurting to transform entirely. But right now we just want to focus on helping you turn when you want to.” Hayley said. I nodded, and we stepped off the porch and walked to the edge of the tree line.

“I only turned before because I wanted to kill Jed.” I said, “I wasn’t trying to.”

“It was your body’s natural response to how you were feeling. You’ve been used to expressing your anger with magic, and when you managed to get some control over that, your body sought out a different outlet.”

I closed my eyes and focused on what they told me to do. Breathe, _want_ to change, will it to happen. Don’t fight the pain, let it in.

A part of me didn’t think it would work. Another part of me didn’t want to do it at all. I didn’t like transforming to begin with. It was painful, inconvenient, and I hated those stupid transformation rooms in the basement of the school. I hated being confined in a cell. I hated downing wolfsbane that burned my throat to keep my werewolf form weak. I hated listening to the screams of my classmates once a month. The new ones were always the worst.

Klaus told me not to think about that. Out here, in the woods, it would be different. But somehow, thinking of all of those things and how much I wanted to just be free was the motivation I needed. I focused on how badly I wanted to experience transforming on my own terms, out in nature. I felt my bones begin to crack, and again I remembered what he said about the pain.

I could hear them, encouraging me, telling me I was almost done. And then I was. I realized I’d managed to hold onto my conscience a little better this time too. I was able to turn and look back at them, and their proud faces, before bounding off into the woods.

* * *

 

“She did it.” Hayley said, the relief and pride evident in her voice. “Do you think she’ll be alright? She’d never done this outside before.”

“She’s fine.” Klaus said confidently. They were quiet for a moment, still watching the trees, and Klaus hesitantly said, “I mean, I can check on her. If you think I should?”

“Do you want to?”

He genuinely looked uncertain. “Well, if it would put _your_ mind at ease, then I could.”

Hayley smirked, amused. “Go ahead.”

He handed her his car keys, “Get my clothes from the car and have them handy?” And, to Hayley, the fact that he’d already had a change of clothes at the ready in case he decided he wanted to transform so he could keep an eye on his daughter was kind of sweet.

He leapt off the porch and had transformed practically before he even hit the ground again, and took off into the woods. Hayley stood on the porch for a moment, pondering how strange her life had become, and somewhat wishing she could be out there in the woods with her daughter.

She heard a noise to her left, tearing her from her thoughts, and turned to see a large wolf near the gravel driveway, watching her. It was neither of the wolves she had just seen run into the woods.

So who was it? And how was it here without a full moon?

She instinctively took a step back, knowing it wouldn’t do a lot of good. She was a few steps from the door, but werewolves were fast.

She heard a low growl, but not from that wolf in particular. She turned to see Hope, still in wolf form, staring down the stranger. The wolf merely looked at her, seeming more curious than anything, and then turned and ran off. Hope started to go after it, but Hayley called out to her. This was already unsettling enough without her daughter running and getting into danger. She ran towards the house and changed back halfway through the doorway of the little cabin. Hayley followed her in, where she’d already wrapped herself in a blanket and was now grabbing up her clothes to get dressed.

“What was that?” she asked, quickly heading to the bathroom with her clothes. “ _Who_ was that?”

“No idea. We’ll tell Klaus when he gets back.” She tried not to seem worried. “He should be right behind you. He can…handle it.” They’d definitely just seen a werewolf, when Hope and Klaus should be the only two in the world who could change outside of the full moon. And that werewolf had definitely seen Hope, and possibly been nearby the whole time they’d been here.


	15. Chapter 15

“So where might the rest of my dark objects be?” Kol Mikaelson asked of Davina as he followed her into her apartment. She had only moved out of Marcel’s place a year ago. He’d been nearly impossible to deal with when she packed up her things and moved…literally right across the street from the loft. She liked to stay close, and she never managed to fully make amends with the other witches, so it was good to have allies. 

He would be even more impossible to deal with if he knew she’s brought Kol back to her apartment. Turns out, she kind of hated that attic, and didn’t want to spent any more time necessary there.

“They’re not even in this apartment, so don’t think about going snooping around. Actually, stay out of my stuff. Period.” She commanded.

“Three days with that bracelet and you’ve already gone mad with power.” He said with a click of his tongue. Kol picked up a piece of mail on the counter-top. “Davina _Claire,_ eh?”

She raised her eyebrows, not missing the way that he emphasized her surname. “Yes. And?”

He tossed the envelope back on the counter. “Oh, nothing. I knew a Claire witch back in my day. We kind of had a thing.” He winked at her, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Okay, so my ancestors had bad taste in men. Got it.”

“That clever witch locked me out of my little playhouse, I’m afraid. I’m still miffed.” He looked in her direction with a menacing gleam in his eyes. She reminded herself that he couldn’t hurt her. At least, she was pretty sure he couldn’t hurt her. Maybe it had been a stupid idea to show him where she lived.

“Well, I’m not her so I don’t see why you feel the need to bring it up.” She said, putting on a brave face.

“But you could rectify the situation.” He reasoned, “And take your pick of any of the fascinating things that lie waiting inside. I was quite the collector.”

She did wonder what might be inside this ‘playhouse’ of his, but anything an Original was interested in was probably a terrible idea. “I’m good, thanks.”

“I don’t suppose you keep a stash of blood here for dear Marcellus, do you? I’m famished.”

She did not. She actually hadn’t really thought about it. His sister had mercifully brought him a blood bag when she visited yesterday, but he hadn't had any blood since then. A starving vampire is not a particularly cooperative vampire.

She grimaced and walked over to him, and stuck out her arm in annoyance. “Here. Drink.”

He raised an eyebrow, and lifted her arm to his mouth. “Oh, you’re out of your bloody mind. I like you, darling.” He commented before he extended his fangs and bit into her wrist. She waited a couple of minutes, not sure how much he needed to feel full and not sure if she would notice if she’d lost too much blood in time to call him off. When she finally felt like perhaps he’d had enough she spoke up.

“Alright, stop.”  She said hurriedly, half-worried that it wouldn’t work. He stopped though, and wiped the blood from his lips.

His fangs were still out though, and the spidery black veins still pulsed around his eyes. He eyed the blood dripping from her wrist hungrily.

“Ughh, here.” He growled, ripping into his own wrist and holding it up to her. “You need to heal. I can’t handle the scent.”

Awkwardly, she lifted his wrist to her mouth and swallowed a mouthful of his blood. The wound began to heal, and she went to the sink and washed the dried blood away from her arm. “Thanks.” She frowned, unsure why he would heal her.

“Oh, I didn’t do it for you. I’m not used to stopping while someone’s heart is still beating. It’s quite frustrating.”

Before Davina could respond that incredibly alarming statement, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She picked it up and read a text. “My friend Josh said your family is causing trouble.” She said, surprised. “I’d better go to the compound.”

“Well, you’re bringing me along right? I mean, it _is_ my insane family.”

“Fine, Whatever.”  


* * *

 

After the wolf had disappeared and Klaus returned, we had been getting ready to leave when Hayley looked at the tree line and noticed a woman staring at us.

“Klaus.” She hissed, and indicated towards the trees. He looked up, and his eyes narrowed.

“Got it.”

The woman, realizing she’d been noticed, took off to run but Klaus had grabbed her and brought her back to us within seconds, slamming her against the side of the car by her throat.

“Not…exactly what I had in mind.” Hayley said with a grimace. "Hope's still standing right here, by the way."

Klaus stared down the woman, not paying the slightest bit of attention to Hayley's words. “You’d best start explaining why you’re spying on us.”

Her eyes darted frantically around.

“I’m sorry! We don’t get people out here very much. I saw you and the girl transform. And then I saw her,” she gestured to Hayley, “And the birth mark on her shoulder when she was getting things out of your car. I had the same one.”

I’d seen Hayley’s crescent-shaped birth mark. I had the same one. For the longest time I’d just assumed it was a weird anomaly until I met my mother. She unfortunately had no more answers than I had about it though.

“ _Had?_ ” Hayley asked.

“I burned it off. It’s never been safe to be a Crescent wolf in New Orleans. Even under the new leadership.” Her eyes darted to Klaus.

That’s when we learned about the Crescent curse, which had been placed on the wolf pack by Marcel Gerard in the early 90s. Somehow, it had missed Hayley and me.

The important thing to understand is that I managed to keep myself calm and collected the entire drive back to the French Quarter, and all the way to the compound until we walked in and found Marcel in the courtyard and I promptly used my magic to through him across the yard.

But I was really proud of myself for keeping it together up until that moment.

When no one rushed forward to stop me, I kept going. I walked up to him as he started to get up and reached a hand towards his head, clenching my fist. He doubled over in pain and grabbed his head as the pain radiated throughout.

“I don’t know who you had curse them but undo it.” I demanded, finally releasing him from the pain. For the moment.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Crescent pack.” Klaus stepped up beside me. “What did you do, and why is this the first I’m hearing about it?”

Marcel stood, rubbing his temples, “Since when have you ever cared about the werewolves, Klaus? They were causing problems. They were dealt with.”

“They’re my _family_.” I said angrily, “They’re my mom’s family.”

Marcel’s face changes from confusion to shock as he looks at me and then at Hayley behind me. “You’re…?” he trails off, unable to finish the sentence. Instead, he says, “Your shoulder. Let me see the back of your shoulder.”

Hayley turns and pulls the strap of her tank to the side so he has an unobstructed view. “You’re the baby.” Marcel says in surprise.

“ _What_ baby?” Klaus asked, quickly losing patience.

“Her parents were killed by someone else in their pack. I found her in her crib before…before the curse.” Marcel admitted, looking at Hayley, “The witch made it so she and her descendants wouldn’t be affected. I mean, I’m not a total monster. I could have used her as a bargaining chip and I didn’t.”

“But you’re still a monster.” I said. I resumed the headache-inducing spell.

Davina ran out into the courtyard and stretched out her hands towards Marcel, chanting a protection spell. I dropped my arms and glared at her.

“What the hell is this about?” she asked.

Marcel finally regained his composure. “Listen, we can undo it. Davina can help us.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you cursed them in the first place.” I said venomously, “It was still evil.”

Davina laughed, causing me to turn toward her. “You really want to talk about Marcel’s actions? It’s a drop in the bucket compared to-.”

I threw her off her feet. “I’d choose my next words carefully.” I hissed.

To my surprise, and Davina’s, Klaus moved between us. “Hope, you know she’s right though.”

I frowned. How could he side with them? Especially when she was about to insult him?

He continued, “Let me handle this. Give Marcel a chance to fix things for the Crescent wolves. He couldn’t have known they were yours and Hayley’s pack.”

I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let me get revenge. I knew he was close to Marcel but how could he let this go so easily? Unable to look at any of them anymore, I stormed off to my room.

* * *

 

Rebekah went to Marcel’s side, furiously apologizing for her niece’s behavior. Marcel didn’t seem to harbor any hard feelings. He admitted he understood she was angry. Anyone would be.

“Well, I was going to suggest a paternity test the other day just to be sure but that seems to be rather unnecessary.” Kol was the first to speak, of course. “That’s your daughter, Nik.”

Klaus ignored him. Davina looked shocked that Klaus had even bothered to intervene. “Thanks for that, I suppose.” She mumbled at him.

“You can repay me by figuring out how to undo the curse. Marcel, get her whatever or whoever she needs to break it.” Klaus said rather tiredly. It had been a hell of a day. He was also feeling a bit guilty. At one point he'd recognized Hayley's birthmark, when they'd  _conceived_ Hope, but he hadn't mentioned a word about it at the time. He'd considered bringing it up again when Hayley and Hope arrived in New Orleans but he had to admit, he didn't like the possibility that Hayley would rather be with the pack, and Hope would rather go where her mother goes. 

Now he might as well help them find the answers they needed and hope that they took that into consideration later on. 

“A Deveraux witch cast it. Talk to Sophie or Jane Ann.” Marcel said. He looked at Hayley, who’d been fairly quiet through the whole ordeal, “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

“Seems like it.” She agreed.

“I’m so glad to be woken up just in time for more family drama.” Kol deadpanned. “Just once it would be nice to wake up without a crisis.” Klaus cast him an annoyed glare.

“If I were in Davina’s shoes, I believe I’d command you to just never speak.” He snapped. Davina smirked at the idea but already knew she wouldn’t be doing that, seeing as how she had developed a fondness already for Kol’s ability to get under Klaus’s skin.

Then Klaus and Hayley both exchanged glances, knowing that talking to Marcel about the Crescent pack would need to be put on hold for the moment so they could attempt to calm their very angry daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note, no Celeste in this version so it really would have been a Deveraux witch who cast the spell. She just seemed like an unnecessary enemy in my plan for this.


	16. Chapter 16

I heard Hayley tap on my bedroom door. “Davina’s already working on a way to reverse the curse.” She called softly, “Marcel is sorry, Hope, really. He promised to tell us everything we want to know about the pack.”

“He’d love to speak with you when you’re in a slightly less murderous mood.” Klaus added.

“Not likely.” I replied bitterly. Slowly, the door opened, as if they were bracing for an explosion on the other side. I was too tired for that at the moment.

“I had no idea, Hope.” Klaus said softly.

“I know. It’s not you I’m mad at.”

“I’ve done far worse things that what Marcel has done.” Klaus said. I shook my head. I didn’t want to have this conversation.

“We’re not talking about that right now. This is about Marcel and the Crescent wolves.” I stated.

He looked at Hayley, and she nodded understandingly and left the room. I braced myself for whatever ‘serious talk’ was about to come.

“We have to talk about it. Come on.” He led me down to his study where he went to a drawer in the large desk  in the center of the room and pulled a massive leatherbound book.

“My memoirs.” He explained. “Well, one volume of them. It’s a starting point at least.”

“I’ve already read the things written about you in my school books.” I said quickly. I’d seen plenty. I didn’t need more proof.

“You’ve not read it in my words though. You need to. Not to mention, I’m sure there’s quite a bit the authors of those books didn’t even know about. I’ve not missed a detail, I can promise you that.”

“Why do I need to? Why would you even want me to?”

“You call Marcel a monster but he learned everything he knows from me. He used quite a bit of that knowledge to build this city up from nothing when my siblings and I left.” He hands me the book, “Read it.”

“It won’t change anything.” I insist, but my tone lacks the conviction I’d had a minute ago. I settle into one of the plush chairs and look down at the book uncertainly.

“Let me know when you’re ready to talk to Marcel without throwing him across a room.”

The volume he’d given me was not from the very beginning, but instead from when his family had first arrived in New Orleans. I opened it to the first page and began to delve into the horrors that surround the Mikaelson family.

* * *

 

“So I’m Andrea Labonair?” Hayley asked slowly. The past couple of hours had been a whirlwind of information. “And my whole pack is cursed to live as wolves almost full time. ”

“We’ll get them back, I promise.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?” Hayley asked.

He lowered his voice, “He’s different lately. Haven’t you seen it? He thinks before he does anything, like he’s worried about what she’ll think of him.”

Marcel was right. Klaus had changed, even in the few short days. Or rather, he was making an effort to change how he was perceived. She wasn’t totally convinced his heart had really changed all that much, but at least he was giving his actions more thought instead of going down his usual path of destruction.

“He’s never really cared about what people thought before. So long as they feared him.” Marcel added.

Hayley was still suspicious though. “And I can’t imagine _you_ might benefit from Klaus suddenly developing a conscience.” 

Marcel shrugged, “Listen, it’s been a long five years trying to find a balance and making him understand that things are different than the way they were one hundred years ago in this city. Anything that makes him a little less paranoid and tyrannical is a welcome change. I’m happy to have Hope around for as long as she wants. I guess we’ll wait and see if he finds a fun new way to screw it up.”

She was not nearly as angry with Marcel as Hope was, but Hayley was used to the supernatural world and its strange and brutal forms of justice. If she shut out everyone who’d done something wrong, she wasn’t sure if there would be anyone left.

They went back to join the others in the courtyard, and Klaus arrived moments later.

“She’s reading my memoirs.”

“See? Fun new ways to screw it up.” Marcel said to Hayley.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Klaus demanded.

Marcel gave an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Nothing at all. I’m sure she’ll thoroughly enjoy reading about your diabolical actions in your own words.”

“I did it for your sake.” He said, and then looked at the rest of them, “All of you, in a way. You’ve been avoiding the uncomfortable subjects and walking on eggshells for days now. I’m flattered you’d want to be complicit in covering up my worst crimes but it ends now. She’s going to learn the truth and then she can decide for herself if she still wants anything to do with me.”

“You’re her father, Niklaus. Of course she’s going to want you in her life.” Elijah spoke up, sharply, “She’s too young to learn about our past.”

“She’s too young to be using her power to wreak havoc on anyone who even remotely offends her, but here we are.” Klaus retorted. “It’s not just about showing that I’ve done worse that Marcel, or anyone else. She’s capable of more than any of us realize. She’s still at a point where she can decide what path to choose in life. I want to ensure she chooses the right one. More specifically, not the same path I took.”

No one speaks for a moment, because no one would have ever dreamed he’d say something like that.

Davina, whom had been trying to find information about the curse, finally came back—followed by Kol—with a large spellbook and slammed it down on one of the tables. She grinned proudly.

“Kol, tell them what we’ve found.” She commanded smugly.

He shot her an irritated look.

“The Deveraux witch wrote down the spell she used. Davina should be able to work up a counter-curse by the full moon. _Also_ , is Hope forced to transform on the full moon?”

“Yes, why?”

“She shouldn’t be. Davina thinks that when the witch cast the curse, she excluded Hayley and her decedents by specifying that they would be immune and would be _completely normal_ werewolves. Hope’s hybrid, or tribrid, nature has been trying very hard to work against that. Hence being able to transform outside of a full moon, but the witches words were perhaps a little too powerful. If we can pull this off, she won’t have to transform on the full moon anymore. Unless she just really, really wants to. Did that about cover it, darling?”

“Don’t call me that.” Davina said in a warning tone, “But yes. I guess you were paying attention after all.”

“If you’ll excuse us, Davina’s finally going to help me get into my secret lair so we can gather some items to use for power.”

They left the courtyard, and once they were certainly out of earshot, Marcel remarked, “You know, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with those two spending so much time together anymore.”

It was quite clear that Kol and Davina had become surprisingly tolerant of each other within a matter of days. Rebekah only smiled knowingly, as if she might have guessed this would happen all along. Marcel scowled at the thought.

“Oh, you thought forcing Kol to follow a pretty girl everywhere was a _good_ idea?” Rebekah laughed, “That’s cute.”

* * *

 

Three hours had passed, and I was riveted by what I had read so far. I finally had to put the book down though. It was too much to process in one evening. Actually, the evening had definitely stretched into night by now. I realized I was exhausted.

The door to the study opened, and Elijah walked in.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“Oh, we took a vote. I haven’t done anything to draw your ire yet today.”

“Yet.” I shrugged. He smiled.

Elijah gestured to the book in my hands. “Is it a good read?”

“I don’t think I’d recommend it for the local book club.” I admitted, “but it’s been enlightening.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“You’re in there a lot. He complains about you spoiling his fun quite frequently.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just waits. He knows I have far more on my mind than just that. The common theme of Elijah pulling Klaus back from becoming  his absolute worst was familiar to me. Penelope and MG had been the same thing for me. Always pulling me back, even when I got angry with them and told them to leave me alone, they seemed to think I was worth sticking around for. That mean Elijah must believe Klaus was worth sticking around for.

“Why did you?” I asked. “What made you keep trying? A thousand years is a long time to fight what looks like an uphill battle.”

“I didn’t always. I very nearly gave up a few times. I even tried to kill him once, during my darkest period.”

“You tried to kill your brother?”

“Don’t look so shocked, we’ve all tried at least once in some way or another.”

I stared at him incredulously.

“And now you all get along and live under one roof? How does that even happen?”

“Eternity is a long time to try and go it alone.” He sighed, “But to answer your question, I saw something in him worth saving. Only glimpses over the years, but I’ve seen more of the man I knew before we became what we are in the past few days than I have in a millennium. I believe we have you to thank for that, Hope.”


	17. Chapter 17

Using her blood, Davina was able to successfully open the mausoleum that had apparently been Kol’s personal clubhouse. She’d mostly figured out how to reverse the curse that the Crescent wolves were under, she just needed to draw from more power. Tonight was the full moon, and they were nearly ready.

She and Kol stood at the threshold for a moment. “Well?” Kol said, “After you.”

“Why me?”

“I want to make sure it isn’t booby-trapped.”

She scowled. “You go first.”

Kol gave her a playful grin, which she did not return, and walked into the mausoleum. He did pause for a moment, half expecting a wooden stake to shoot out at him. Mary-Alice may have been infatuated with him, but she was no fool.

While he probably would have killed her eventually, he did feel a bit guilty for how she met her end.

Davina followed him inside, after it seemed safe enough, and she magically lit the candles scattered about the room. In the light, she saw all manner of artifacts and strange, ancient objects. On a table in the center of the room there appeared to be the makings of a mad scientist’s lab. Glancing at Kol’s gleeful face in the candlelight, she surmised that’s pretty much exactly what it was.

“Do you have any preference on what we end up using?" she asked him. "Some of it could break. I'm not really sure..." He was rummaging through a box on a shelf.

“Oh, no, take whatever you like. Most of the good stuff is in your possession already.”

He produced a silver dagger from the box. Davina recognized that it was similar to the one that had been in Kol’s own chest just a few days ago.

“Rebekah has the one she pulled out of me. I’ve got some of the white ash around here somewhere as well. Best to keep at least one of these close at hand. You never know when you might need it.” He winked. In a surprising move, he handed Davina the dagger and went back to searching for the white ash.

“Why would you give me this?” she asked, astonished.

“A show of trust. And I figure you’d just order me to anyway with that damned bracelet that I can't wait to destroy as soon as I'm free of it. But now this way if you use the dagger, you might feel the slightest bit remorseful.”

Davina didn’t reply. She gathered some of the items from the shelves, each of them practically radiating energy.

“Hope should be here soon to help me break these down.” Davina said. “Then I can use the power to cast the spell on the full moon tonight.”

“You're a bloody genius, just so you know. Most witches with twice or three times your experience wouldn't have figured this out." he told her, which she had to admit was nice to hear, "Why are you doing this anyway?”

Davina shrugged. “I like Hope, and I like Hayley. And Marcel wants to fix his mistakes.”

“And you're annoyingly loyal to Marcel.” It’s not a question.

“He nearly let New Orleans become destroyed in a magical apocalypse for my sake. You weren’t there, but it was pretty ‘end of days’ feeling for a bit.” Davina reminded him. "It was a stupid thing to do, on both our parts, but his heart was in the right place." 

"You seem like the type who'd be good at discerning that kind of thing." he remarked. He was always saying things like that lately. She assumed it was flattery to make her take the bracelet off. But she couldn't, not yet. He still couldn't control himself on his own when he fed from the vein, and she'd promised Marcel she'd fix him. And she found herself really wanting to accomplish her goal.

 

* * *

 

I’d still barely spoken to Marcel or anyone else for that matter. I did inform him that his apology was accepted, somewhat coldly, but I could hold a grudge. I was good at that.

With the full moon approaching tonight, Davina had a multi-step plan for getting the Crescent wolves back. First, it involved a spell to delay Hayley’s and my own transformation to make sure we could drink the cure as well, just to be on the safe side.  Next, Davina and I needed to combine our power with that of the artifacts she was obtaining from Kol. Then we could create an elixir for the pack to drink that would neutralize the curse. Hayley had already had Eve spread the word that they were supposed to meet us at the shack in the Bayou that evening. Once they took their human form, everyone would drink it, and all of this would be over. 

I walked up to the Mausoleum, which was already open, and found Kol and Davina inside the weird secret lab.

“Well, this is creepy.” I commented, looking around at the ancient objects that littered the shelves, and to the table containing a rather impressive chemistry set.

“That’s actually what I was aiming for, thanks.” I could literally never tell if he was joking.

“Okay, we don’t have a ton of time to prepare, so we need to get this started. This spell won’t stop you from transforming, but it’ll slow it down enough that you can drink the cure when the full moon rises, so that’ll stop your transformation altogether, and they’ll drink once they’ve all reached the meeting point. I’ve worked it out so they shouldn’t transform into wolves while still under the full moon tonight. I’m going to have Hayley drink it too, just to be safe. We might as well cover our bases.”

“But she’ll still turn once the first spell wears off."

“That’s unavoidable.” Davina said apologetically.

I’d already decided that when Davina’s spell to slow down her transformation wore off, I’d transform when Hayley did. It hardly seemed fair that she’d be the only one to be forced into her wolf form that night.

Davina and I joined hands and chanted, drawing the energy from the objects and essentially pulling the power off of them. When we thought we’d gotten enough, Davina quickly used some of my blood for the spell to delay mine and Hayley’s transformations. That was the easier part. The hard part was creating enough of the powerful elixir to make sure every member of the pack was cured.

“We need more power.” Davina said in frustration. Kol walked around the room, gathering objects he deemed good sources of power, and dumped them on the table.

“Take these.” He said, “Also, channel me too. Original vampire equals loads of powerful magic.”

Reluctantly, Davina took his hand, and we started over again, chanting over the herbal mixture in the bowl before us and drawing in more power from the objects, several of them shattered or became warped in the process.

But this time, we managed it.

Davina beamed. “We did it!” she said happily. She looked at Kol with a smile and then quickly looked away and released his hand.

Kol either didn’t notice or pretended not to. He went over to a cooler they’d brought along and grabbed a blood bag from it. “Being a magical battery pack is some exhausting work.”

* * *

 

I could feel the transformation trying to do its work, even against Davina’s spell. It wasn’t terribly painful, just this mild sense of discomfort as we waited for more and more Crescents to arrive and for Davina to arrive with the cure. At least Hayley was getting the opportunity to meet her pack, while I stood awkwardly on the porch of the little shack nearby.

Klaus, Elijah, and Davina arrived, and Davina started to get everything ready to make sure everyone got the cure. She immediately took a dose to me and Hayley, and the discomfort of my body trying to fight Davina’s block on my transformation stopped right away. At least that was as a relief. I was no longer bound to transform now that I was free of the side effects of my “exemption” from the actual curse.

Klaus took notice of my discomfort with the other werewolves though and came to my side.

“You probably didn’t have to come.”  I told him. He’d been distant too, since suggesting that I read his memoirs. It was true they were definitely eye-opening, but they didn’t change the fact that he was my father. And so far, he’d managed to be a better one than I’d ever had before. I just wished he could see that.

“I wanted to see this through. Shouldn’t you be getting to know your pack?”

I grimaced at the idea. “I did what I set out to do. I’ve never had much luck with other wolves. They’re usually not big fans of my many, many differences.”

He looked away. I felt like an idiot and quickly added, “Not that _I_ mind being different. That’s not what I meant.”

“Still, I’m aware it hasn’t been easy.”

A group of loud voices disrupted our conversation. A couple dozen vampires arrived in the clearing.

“Stop this now.” The one in the front ordered as they walked towards us, “And we’ll let you all live.”

Hayley walked towards them before anyone could stop her. One of the vampires grabbed her and threw her. She crashed into the side of the shack, completely shattering one of the windows.

“No!” I cried, and raced over to her. I knew she’d heal, but not nearly as fast as we needed her to right now. I grabbed a shard of glass and sliced my arm open.

“Hope.” She coughed, eyes widening at my actions.

“Just drink. It’ll speed the healing up.” I told her in a rushed voice. In my peripheral vision, I saw Klaus rip the man’s head from his body and challenge the rest of the vampires to try anything. Hayley reluctantly drank the blood from my arm. Combined with her werewolf abilities, it was already taking affect. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“We should get inside with Davina.” I insisted. Or at least she should. I could manage.

“I’m not leaving them.” She stood up slowly and steadied herself, before walking out to stand in front of the rest of the wolves alongside Klaus and Elijah. I braced myself and did the same.

“The Crescents were cursed to live as wolves for a reason.” One of the vampires said. I recognized him to be one of Marcel's favored vampires. “This is a mistake. Just because you strong-armed Marcel into giving in on this doesn’t mean you can bully the rest of us too.”

“Leave, Diego.” Elijah said in that deadly-calm voice. “This is none of your concern.”

“Things were going fine in this city until Klaus’s one-night-stand and their little accident showed up.” another one replied. "Now you want to free the wolves?"

Hayley’s eyes flashed gold and she lunged for the vampire that spoke. But even so close to transforming, she wasn’t any match for him. He snapped her neck.

“No. No, no, no.” I said, running up to her and bending down to see if there was any sign of life. Anything at all. “Hayley? No, please, mom.”

I felt hands grab my shoulders and I started to fight back before I realized it was Klaus.

“Hope, stop. Listen, you fed her your blood a minute ago right?” he said urgently. I nodded, not understanding what he was getting at. “She might come back. I don’t know for sure yet but I think she’ll come back. Right now though? If you want revenge, you can help incapacitate some of these bastards.”

That idea snapped me out of my grief for a second. I looked around and saw that Elijah was already making short work of the vampires anyway, leaving only a dozen or so in just the short time I’d taken to go to Hayley. With all the anger and the added energy from the magical artifacts still lingering, it was almost child's play. I stood facing the ones who were left and clenched my fists, sending immobilizing aneurysms to their heads all at once. Each of them screamed and dropped to the ground in agony, and Klaus and Elijah ripped their hearts out while they were defenseless.

 I felt triumphant for a moment. There was always a few minutes of this weird peace when I used my magic for something big. It was just kind of unfortunate that it usually ended up being something that cause destruction. Or death, in this case. But they deserved it.

I remembered Hayley though, and went back to where she lay on the ground, being looked after by one of the werewolves in the pack. She was still lifeless.

“She’s gone.” The woman said quietly.

Klaus, drenched in blood, walked over, “She may not be. Let’s get her inside.”

Still confused, I followed him as he carried her body, and Elijah came along with us. Davina was inside the shack, she looked at us in alarm. “What happened? I heard screams but then it was over so fast. One of the wolves told me to stay inside and protect the cure.”

“Of course they would.” Klaus growled.

“As they should.” Elijah reminded him, “That’s why Hayley came out here tonight. Everything will continue as planned. It's what she wanted.”

He looked sadly at her body, now lying on a cot.

Klaus paced back and forth. “Stop talking about her in past-tense. She drank Hope’s blood before she died.” He repeated.

“So? What does that mean?” I asked.

“Your mother believed you could create more hybrids. There wasn’t enough time to test the theory or figure out how it could be done, but I’ve had an idea for a while now. We just have to see if she wakes.”

She’d be a vampire when she woke. She might not even want that.

“It’s time to start getting people cured of the curse.” Davina said, “I’ll be outside. I…I hope you’re right.”

Some of the Crescent wolves came in, to pay their respects. We didn’t tell them the theory on her coming back as a hybrid. Not yet anyway. They thanked us for releasing them from the curse that trapped them in their wolf forms for decades. I tried really hard to be polite, but their curse was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

The wait was agony. So many times I just wanted to transform and escape. I’d only just met my mother and now I might lose her for good. I couldn’t let myself believe Klaus might be right. I couldn’t get my hopes up for something like that.

“Do you hear that?” Elijah said suddenly. We all went still.

“The heartbeat…it’s coming from her.” Klaus said. I went over and touched two fingers to her neck. Faintly, I could feel a pulse beneath her skin. She was alive. At least, she was as alive as a vampire could be.


	18. Chapter 18

Hayley took a reluctant sip from the blood bag. She made a face as she drank.

“It’s not quite the same as the fresher stuff.” Elijah admitted. He'd been kind enough to bring her the blood though, since she'd taken refuge in her room while she adjusted.

Hayley had been a hybrid for roughly two days now and the adjustment process had been intense. She already had heightened senses as a werewolf, but it was nothing compared to what she was experiencing right now. Elijah had found her in her room, with the lights out, as far away from all of the sounds and stresses of New Orleans as she could get.

“How did Klaus know I’d need Hope’s blood _after_ transitioning as well?” Hayley asked, finishing the rest of the blood bag. The more she drank, the more appetizing the blood was, thankfully.

“I can only guess at what goes on in that man’s mind sometimes. Regardless, I’m glad he made the right call. How are you feeling?”

She had to admit she was glad for that too. Except now Klaus knew for sure how to make hybrids, and that was a perplexing thought.

“Everything is…too much, right now.” She offered him a weak smile. "Is that a good descriptor? It's too much."

“I'd say that's a fairly apt description of one's first few days as a vampire. I can come back later, if you’d prefer.”

Of course. He was the very definition of polite. “No, no, you can stay.” She said quickly and then she cursed herself for sounding desperate. Also, maybe they should go somewhere other than her bedroom. Elijah standing there looking way too good in a suit in her bedroom was not advisable right now. She’d been moved out of the guest suite though, and into the same section of the house as the rest of the “family” that she was now a part of, for better or worse. She got out of bed and walked out onto the little private balcony that was included in her new lodgings. Elijah followed her out.

The truth was she was growing quite fond of Elijah. From the moment she arrived, he was the only Mikaelson sibling who had been in her corner from the start, and who genuinely seemed to care about her comfort and well-being. To the point that she really had to remind him several times that she did not need to be checked up on multiple times a day. Not that she minded, but she knew he surely had a life of his own.

“How is Hope?” he asked.

“She felt bad at first, about inadvertently turning me. She kept apologizing because I didn’t get a choice in the matter. But I’d rather be a hybrid than dead.” She paused as she had to appreciate how surprising it was to hear herself say that. “Though several years ago, I definitely would have had a different sentiment. Weird how that worked out.” She mused.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad things worked out the way they did.” He said with a small smile, meeting her eyes briefly. Ugh, would it really be so wrong to fall for the brother of your child’s father? Not to mention, he was an original vampire whom she’d once thought of to be some kind of evil monster. He certainly didn’t seem evil though.

It was a stupid idea. There was no telling how Klaus might react, and what would Hope think? She was sure her daughter had no delusions about her parents ending up back together but that didn’t necessarily mean she would just accept her mother and her father’s brother together.

Hayley felt foolish for having all of these thoughts when she wasn’t even sure Elijah shared any feelings for her. Maybe because a friendly face had come so few and far between when she first arrived, she’d stupidly allowed herself to believe it was something more when he showed her kindness.

“Let me know if you decide you need anything, Miss Marshall. Do try to come out of your room soon though.” He gave her an encouraging smile and kissed the back of her hand softly. That was probably the most actual affection he’d shown her and she couldn’t decide if that meant something or if he was just really old with really old ways.

* * *

 

Summer had arrived.

Not everyone is strictly evil, or strictly good. I guess I’d always felt that way, even when I was a kid. I always felt bad the villains in fairytales never got to tell their side of things.

I realized my anger at Marcel was misplaced. It wasn’t him I was angry with. I was angry that I’d had to actually face the reality of my newfound family’s past. It was easier when it was just stories from a text book.

It was easier before the school year had ended and before my four closest friends were on their way to New Orleans to visit.

It was actually pretty easy to plan it out. While Dr. Saltzman was apprehensive—that’s an understatement, he was vehemently against the idea for weeks—Caroline promised she’d be watching Josie and Lizzie 24/7. MG had no real family to speak of so there was no one to tell him he c _ouldn’t_ come down to visit. And Penelope, well, we didn’t really question how Penelope managed to get her way. We just accepted that’s how her life worked.

I paced back and forth in the front room, waiting for their arrival. I’d been excited all week, but now I felt more nervous than anything. Every time I talked about my new family, I left out names, I left out any reminder that they were the same people my friends had read horror stories about. At least the twins had somewhat known Klaus, under a false alias, but now that they knew the truth I knew they were looking at me—and…perhaps their mother—a little differently.

But when Caroline and my friends arrived it was a warm reunion regardless. I was instantly put at ease by the way they greeted me as if all this was totally normal. But they always did that. They always acted like I and the oddities around what I am were just totally normal.

We spent the day  with them catching me up on everything that had been going on back at school.  I even felt a little more confident introducing them to my parents, and no one even batted an eye. And then they hovered, which was kind of annoying, but then I realized how only a year ago I didn’t have parents at all to do annoying things like hover while I hung out with my friends. Jed was no longer alpha of his stupid wolf pack. Someone else challenged him after he ran for his life when I accidentally transformed that night.

“To be totally fair to Jed, I feel like everyone ran away.” I commented. “Except MG, who was stupid enough to run towards me.”

“It was a better idea in my head.”

Josie and Penelope were still going strong. Lizzie was still setting her sights exclusively on unavailable guys. MG and Myra had broken up and gotten back together twice in the past month, but he swore it would all be fine. “We’ve got loads of time to work out our problems obviously.”

Later, the girls and I walked around the Quarter and I showed them everything. MG stayed behind, as my dad said that a friend of his “had an offer for him.” I kind of knew what that was, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But part of me had suspected for a while that he only stuck around to make sure I made it to graduation without burning the school to the ground. That seemed more probable these days.

“So are we going to talk about how mom was all ‘You aren’t going anywhere in that city without me’ on the way here, yet here we are by ourselves while she’s with-”

“Oh god, stop, Lizzie.”

“I’m just saying.” Lizzie shrugged, “Every time he’s come around for years she’s held her ground but I bet you that’s not going to be so easy now.”

“How does our mom even know an Original vampire?” Josie asked.

“It was this whole thing where he was trying to kill her best friend.” I supplied. They all stared at me for a moment. “Or like…trying to take all her blood or something like that.”

There were definitely parts of my life that would never be normal.

We walked back to the compound, where MG waited for us. I managed to get him alone to question him about the ‘meeting’ he’d had.

“Yeah, um.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, and looked a little bit self-conscious, “apparently your dad spoke highly of me to his friend, Marcel? He wants me to stay here and like...work for him. Says I got potential.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said I want to stay here through the summer at least, to make up my mind.” He admitted sheepishly. He was watching for my reaction, probably expecting it to be negative. “I mean, I was thinking about trying to get a job at the school but-”

I wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. “I think we both know Salvatore has taught you all it possibly could by now.” I said with a laugh. “Let someone else look after the _troubled_ new students for a change.”

 

* * *

 

“Well, the month is up.” Kol said. He and Davina stood in her kitchen looking at each other. Actually, the month had been up for a couple of weeks. They’d kind of forgotten to keep track of time.

“It is.” Davina agreed, “And you’re reasonably less murderous these days.”

He flashed a smirk, “Maybe I’m just that good at acting.”

Davina unclasped the bracelet and dropped it on the counter before she could talk herself out of it. Now there was an original vampire in her kitchen, with his free will intact while the witch who took it away for over a month stood in front of him.

“And here I thought we’d really bonded.” He sighed, raising his eyebrows, “judging from the speed at which your heart is beating, I guess not.”

“I really don’t think you can blame me for being a little bit skeptical.” She said, but weirdly she did feel kind of guilty. He’d actually made an effort. Weirder still, she kind of enjoyed his company. He knew more about magic than she could have ever guessed, and she didn’t have a ton of friends, due to being a pariah in the witch community and everything.

“Are you…going to be staying in town?” she asked.

“Why? Would you miss me if I didn’t?” he asked innocently. She felt a blush heat up her face which only made him grin wider. “Don’t worry, Davina Claire, you’ll be seeing me around for a while longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fluffy. Like soooo fluffy, I know. I really had some writers block with this story recently so I decided to just give them all some well-deserved happy times. I'm anticipating 2-3 more chapters before i finish this up.


	19. Chapter 19

In November, I packed up my things to return to school. This year would be different, for sure. This would be the first year the MG would not be hanging around. He was staying behind in New Orleans. Myra had decided to join him. Marcel had always had a strict policy about keeping kids in the city out of harm’s way, and MG had been enlisted to help make sure that rule was upheld. He’d still be in touch, and would probably still come running if anything happened at all.

But that wasn’t the only thing. To my surprise, since I was so adamant about going back to Salvatore, my parents decided they would stay in Mystic Falls for the duration of the school year. More accurately, my dad had decided to, and my mother and uncle Elijah decided they’d best go with him to ensure he didn’t murder anyone who so much as looked at me funny.

“I’m still going to live on campus though.” I reminded them when they picked out a house not far from the school. Actually more like a mansion. Apparently being inconspicuous was not a concern. I wondered what I would say to people now. I’d decided to adopt my mom’s last name for the time being. My family decided it was much too dangerous to directly link myself to the Mikaelson family right away, as they could only guess what enemies might come out of the woodwork. There were already rumors floating around anyway.

“Well, I don’t see _why._ But fine, condemn yourself to dorm room life and a shared bathroom.” My dad had said in utter disbelief and disgust, "With the commoners." 

“I've known a lot of those _commoners_ since I was a little kid." I patiently reminded him, "Besides, Penelope will kill me if she gets a new roommate.” And also, I didn’t want to be any stranger than I already was. I also turned down my dad’s offer to create hybrid guards to escort me to class.

While I decided what to take and what to leave behind, my mom came into the room.

“Nervous?” she asked.

“I haven’t seen anyone but my friends since I wolfed out and tried to kill Jed.” I said with a nervous smile, “It’s a little bit terrifying.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. But the house has a fourth bedroom, if you decide you want a break from them.” She said. She picked up one of the shirts on my bed in the taking-to-school pile and started folding it.

I smirked, realizing that was more bedrooms than actually necessary and adopted a casual tone, “So you and uncle Elijah are still pretending not to be a thing.”

She abruptly dropped the shirt. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“I figured it out like, last month. Don’t worry.” I said with a smile, “You guys really should stop sneaking around.”

“We were going to tell you…” she said guiltily. “I wasn’t sure if it was too much to handle right now.”

“I want you to be happy.” I promised her. It wasn’t any stranger than the fact that at the rate of progress my dad was making with Caroline, I might have two new sisters soon.

For once it seemed like things were really working out. It felt a little strange that my family would be a five minute drive away from my school. I repeatedly told my parents that some kids’ parents live clear across the country and they manage just fine but my dad would not hear a word of it. He said he missed fourteen years and refused to miss another moment. My uncle Elijah told me the best course of action was to just let his neurotic behavior run its course.

On move-in day, per Dr. Saltzman’s wishes, only my mom helped me get settled in my dorm. He was still pretty wary of having Original vampires lurking around Mystic Falls again, and after I learned a little more of their history here I couldn’t totally blame him. I counted how many people I caught very clearly whispering about me as I walked to my room, but eventually I lost count. I also counted how many times people would suddenly become quiet when I entered a room, as if they were just talking about me. They didn’t know for a fact what was true or not, but I knew everyone had guesses.

“This is going to get old.” I muttered.

“Well, if anyone says anything to you, you’ve got a whole family willing to gauge their eyeballs out.” My mom joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Klaus will probably gauge their eyeballs out just for thinking about saying anything to you.”

“Comforting.” I said sarcastically. Penelope arrived a while later, when we were almost done unpacking my stuff.

“Someone just asked me on my way up here if I was afraid you were going to wolf out in the middle of the night and kill me.” Penelope announced.

“What’d you say?”

“I told them that you actually only kill people I don’t like, and I’d be sure to keep their name in mind.” She grinned evilly. That certainly wasn’t going to do much to help my new image but at least she meant well?

I shrugged it off, and told my mom I’d be okay from here, and hugged her goodbye.

“So what’s our course of action this year?” Penelope asked, “We have no good-influence-MG anymore to stand in the way of world domination.”

“There’s still Josie.” I reminded her.

She sighed, and nodded. “That does interfere with at least 75% of my plans.”

“Do the remaining plans involve me wolfing out on anyone? Because I’m gonna have to go ahead to shut that down.”

“And there goes at least another ten percent.” she lamented. “So now I’m left with ten percent.”

“Five percent.”  I corrected her, hiding my amusement.

“Hope, you know I'm fundamentally bad at math."

The rest of the day went alright, but in all fairness I barely left my room. I relied on Penelope, Jose, and Lizzie to threaten to hex anyone who brought up the events of last year.

Eventually, though, I was forced out of my room due to hunger. Maybe it was the vampire blood, or the wolf thing, or both, but I definitely ate more than any normal, teenage girl ever would. Today had been anomaly so now I felt half-starved to death.

I slipped out of my dorm room around eight that evening, hoping that most people were settling into their rooms and finishing up with unpacking at this point. I’d gone down to the kitchen tons of times for extra food after dinner, this should be no different.

However, as I crept down the hall as silently as I could, while looking back over my shoulder, I ran head first into a stranger.

“Oh! Oh, god, I’m so sorry.” I said at once. I’d caused him to drop the text books he was carrying. Hastily, I bent down to help him gather them up.

“Nah, don’t worry about. I probably should have been watching for girls trying to ninja through the hall at night. This does seem like the place for it.” He said with an easy smile. I relaxed a little.

“Are you new here?” I asked. He nodded. Thank god.

“First day. I was just now picking up my books. You?”

I shook my head, “Oh, no. I’ve been going here for years. This place is like a second home.” It had been my only home up until recently, but I wasn’t about to tell the kind-of-cute new guy about that.

“Well, maybe you can show me around tomorrow?” he asked hopefully. “What’s your name?”

“Um, Hope. Hope Marshall.” I said. And then I saw the expression on his face change, and I realized he must have been here long enough to talk to some of the other students. That was just my luck. I decided to duck out before I could further embarrass myself. “Well, I need to go. It was nice to meet you. Bye.” I said abruptly, and started down the hall once more, at a much faster pace.

“Hey, wait!” he called after me but I ignored him. Regardless of his appearance, I did not need some complete stranger asking me invasive questions.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I have STRUGGLED with this story for days, and I'm at a major roadblock right now where I don't know exactly where I want to go with it and I would still really love to bring Freya back so that might be the direction I go. But for now, I'm ending it and I may create a sequel when the writer's block isn't so bad. I haven't been able to write anything else because of my guilt with this one haha. 
> 
> So I'm sorry this is ending rather abruptly, but I needed a stopping point, and this felt like as good a place as any. THANK YOU everyone for the support I've gotten while writing this though! I never expected this to get so much love.

Kids at school had gotten a little less weird over the past couple of months. But not so much that I felt at all comfortable. The werewolves were more than content to leave me alone but they still whispered about me behind my back, which I was less-than-pleased about. No amount of venting to my friends or even face-timing with MG could get me to ignore it completely.  Plus, I’d already set fire to a girl’s jacket for glaring at me in class and that resulted in the first parent-teacher conference I’d had in my life. So I really needed to get things under control if I wanted to avoid that painful experience again.

“This isn’t necessary at all.” I complained when I walked into Dr. Saltzman’s office and found both my parents already there. “I’ve gotten in trouble lots of times without the need for you to call _anyone._ ”

“Well, there wasn’t anyone to call until now.” Alaric reasoned.

“Did the other girl deserve to have her jacket set on fire?” Klaus asked. I nodded. He shrugged, “well, there’s no further need for this meeting.”

“Ignore him.” Hayley interrupted. “Hope, what exactly did she do to you?”

“She wouldn’t stop looking at me. I made her stop.” I confessed.  Hayley raised an eyebrow at Klaus.

“Fine. I would have started with her purse or something not physically on her body but-”

“I’m starting to think this was actually a bad idea.” Dr. Saltzman cut him off before he could finish his thought. “Clearly this is going to be a learning process. For everyone.”

I had hoped that one meeting with my slightly-dysfunctional-but-well-meaning parents would put an end to any more of these conferences, but Dr. Saltzman only saw it as reason to increase them.

I know I welcomed my parents’ eagerness to be involved in my life at first, and I still did, but it turned out having people around who care made getting into trouble a lot more of an issue. Before, I would be lectured by Dr. Saltzman, or Miss Forbes. Or if it was actually really bad, even MG or Penelope would interrogate me on what exactly I’d been thinking at the time. I could handle that. I could not handle suddenly being _parented_ by two people who had known me for a few months. No one warned me about that part. I knew they meant well, and they cared, but I wasn’t some little kid.

So we needed a distraction. That was already partly taken care of when Hayley and Elijah finally stopped sneaking around and openly started dating.  But then there was my father. Because if I had any chance of normalcy or talking to a boy ever again, he needed a distraction as well. It was glaringly obvious that Caroline was avoiding him like the plague now that he was right there in town. She skipped out on every single one of those sessions Dr. Saltzman forced us to attend.

I didn’t get a chance to actually devise any sort of plan though. Lizzie started it, of all people.

Because maybe she was just bored, or maybe she was just tired of her mom being a workaholic and chronically single since Stefan Salvatore died, like, years ago.

“This is ridiculous, and your mom will know what’s going on like the second he shows up.” I argued when she presented her idea to us.

“You don’t have to help, but don’t complain to me when you’re not on the guest list for the wedding.”

“Why would you be in charge of the guest list?” Josie asked.

“We’re getting off track!” Lizzie snapped.

I groaned. This was never going to work if we stopped every five minutes to bicker.

Really our main concern was Caroline and the possibility of her finding out what we were up to. My dad was not in on the plan, but we doubted he would protest. Like, at all.

I needed a dumb scheme to throw myself into anyway. The one boy I’d had interest in, I decided to distance myself from at the time being. At least until I could be sure that his life wouldn’t be immediately endangered by the biggest, baddest vampires of history.

“So it’s really easy. We’re gonna have mom meet us in town for lunch and she’s going to say yes because she feels guilty about being away in Europe all last month. Then we’re going to _not_ show up. But guess who is?”

“This is so stupidly obvious, she’s going to kill us.” Josie groaned.

“It doesn’t matter.” Lizzie said confidently. “She’ll thank us in the long run. She doesn’t even come to those dumb meetings that dad makes Hope and her parents go to. She just needs to stop avoiding him and stop being weird. At this rate it’s only a matter of time before she comes up with an excuse to leave the freaking country again.”

“She’s not being weird, she’s just…” Josie trailed off.

Caroline had quickly gone from the micro-managing she’d been doing in New Orleans, to outright pretending Klaus Mikaelson did not exist since he came to Mystic Falls. Maybe having him here in her home town made things different, somehow?

My job was basically the same one the Saltzman twins had. Get him to meet me in town for lunch. And no, _don’t_ pick me up at the school, I’m capable of going into town on my own.

* * *

 

The minute she saw him in the restaurant she knew something was up. Josie and Lizzie were nowhere in sight, and Klaus just happened to be here alone?

“Ugh. Those brats.” She muttered as she shot him a warning glare while he strutted over.

Klaus grinned at her and pulled out his phone and read from a message on it. “’Sorry, turns out I have a group project I forgot about. You should stick around there for a minute though.’ Not terribly subtle, is it?”

“Well, she’s only fifteen, she hasn’t had a chance to become the criminal mastermind that _you_ are yet.” Caroline huffed and rolled her eyes.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to grab lunch while we’re here anyway would you?” Klaus asked innocently.

Caroline narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t conspire with a bunch of teenage girls to get me here alone?”

“Give me a _little_ credit, Miss Forbes. I’d come up with something a little more grand than this.”

“And a lot more annoying.” She reluctantly agreed. “Fine. Just lunch.”

It had been much easier to ignore her feelings when he was just the eccentric man who came to visit a couple of times a year to donate money and pester her. Now he was _right here_ all the time and the father of a child she cared about practically like her own children.

* * *

 

Caroline had words for all of us afterwards, but I don’t think her heart was in it.

“But how was lunch?” Lizzie dared to ask. Josie’s jaw dropped.

Caroline gritted her teeth. “It was _fine_. And also none of your concern.”

Lizzie smirked, and threw me a look, we already knew there was a date in the works for next week. Since I had a reliable source that did nothing at all to discourage our scheme.

It would be a painfully long time before they ever progressed past dating but progress was still progress.

When a few weeks, his focus on me was not quite so constant and I didn’t worry that everyone who looked at me the wrong way might end up beheaded.

“You’re a helicopter parent.” I’d told him, when he did ask why I conspired with Lizzie and  Josie to get Caroline alone with him. He threw a hand over his chest in mock surprise.

“A _helicopter parent_? That’s a lie.”

“I mean, I love having you and mom here. But you guys are intense.” I told him honestly. Well, he was intense mainly. But I left that out.

“We’re new parents.”

“Yeah, but I’m fifteen _years_ old. Not days.” I laughed. “I don’t think you can use that excuse.”

“If you’d only let me create those hybrid body guards…”

“Not happening.” I told him. “I turned into a wolf in front of half the kids at school and there’s still that rumor Lizzie spread when we were kids that I blew up an orphanage. I’m fine, promise.”

Eventually, the secret would get out and it probably had already to an extent. Then we’d have a whole new set of problems to deal with and I’d soon understand just what being a Mikaelson would entail. But for now,  I was content with my slightly over-protective family and the thousand years of history I was now a part of.


End file.
